Window assembly for a deep well scintillation detector

Abstract

A circular glass window in the form of a shallow, truncated cone having parallel faces is nested within and equidistantly spaced from a metal retaining ring defining at its inner periphery a shallow, tapered, smooth-wall bore having a sloped sidewall to which the correspondingly sloped edge of the glass window is bonded by a thin layer of epoxy adhesive composition constituting an annular hermetic seal of constant predetermined thickness for optimum strength. The retaining ring, with the glass window mounted therein, is welded to the end of a tubelike metal housing containing a cylindrical scintillation crystal coaxially mounted therein, the larger diameter base end or inner face of the truncated, cone-shaped window being optically coupled to and adjacent one end of the crystal. The crystal is biased toward the inner face of the window to apply an evenly distributed compression force to the annular epoxy-formed seal to aid in maintaining its hermetic integrity under adverse temperature conditions.