AGATA and GRETA: The Future of Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy

High precision gamma-ray spectroscopy is one of the powerful tools used to study the structure of excited nuclear states and it has contributed to the discovery of a wide range of new phenomena. Each major advance in gamma-ray detection has resulted in significant new insights into the structure of nuclei. To date, these advances have culminated in two state-of-the-art 4π arrays of escape-suppressed spectrometers, Euroball in Europe [1] and Gammasphere in the United States [2]. These arrays, which consist of more than a 100 large volume germanium crystals each surrounded by a Compton-suppression shield, have pushed this particular detector technology to its limit, with an efficiency for a 1 MeV gamma ray of about 10% and a peak-to-total ratio of 0.5.