 Radioactivity Definition , Units and Dosage :

 The number of disintegration per unit of

time is called the radioactivity
 Rt of the sample is calculated by dividing
the number of radioatoms decayed (dNt)
by the interval (dt) during which the decay
took place.
 Rt = -dNt……
 dt
 its unit is Becquerel Bq in SI and curie Ci in
CGS.
 Becquerel is the radioactivity of sample
that is disintegrating at a rate of 1
disintegrates/s. It is small unit.
 Curie is the radioactivity of sample that is
disintegrating at a rate of 3.7 *1010
disintegrates/s. It is large unit.
 DOSAGE: The amount radioactivity (MBq
or mCi) administered to a patient is
called dosage.
 Law of Decay: The constant lambda also
known as the decay constant, is defined
as the probability of decay per unit time
for a single radioatom.
 There fore if there are Nt radioatoms
present at time t then the number of
nuclei disintegrating per unit time Rt at
time t will be simply the product of
lambda and Nt. Rt=lambda.Nt
 Carrier free : Such a sample that
contains only the radionuclide of interest
and no other isotopes or long lived
radioisotopes of that radionuclide is
generally called a carrier free.
 The exponential law of Decay :
 if we combine equations (1) and (2) ,
then −dN/dt = λ Nt
 This is a differential equation whose
solution is given by the following
expression Nt + N◦e –( λ-t )
 This equation relates the number of
radioatoms Nt remaining at time t when we
initially started (at t=0) with a number No
and is known as the exponential law of
decay.
 Half Life : This is defined as the time interval
for a given number of nuclei to decay to
one half of the original value.
 For example : If initially there are 10,000
nuclei in a radionuclide and 5000 of them
decay in 5 days.
 Then the half of life of this radionuclide is 5
days.
 Biological Half life : Is defined as the
interval during which a given amount of
a biochemical or drug in a biological
system is reduced to one half its original
value.
 Xenon -133 a radioactive inert gas is used
for lung function studies. Its physical half
life is 5.3 days and its biological half life in
the lungs is about 0.35 minutes.
Determine the effective half life of 133
xenon in the lungs.
 Exponential decay : is the decrease in a
quantity according to the law N(t) = No e t
 for a parameter and constant (known as
the decay constant), where is
the Exponential function and is the initial
value.
 Exponential decay is common in physical
processes such as radioactive decay,
cooling in a draft (i.e., by forced
convection), and so on.
 Exponential decay is described by the first-
order ordinary differential equation.