Low-background steel

Low-background steel, also known as pre-war steel, pre-atomic steel, or pre-nuclear steel, is any steel produced prior to the detonation of the first nuclear bombs in the 1940s and 1950s. Typically obtained from scrapped ships, salvaged shipwrecks, and other steel artifacts of this era, it is often used as a shielding material for particle detectors and whole-body counting equipment because more modern steel is contaminated with traces of nuclear fallout. Other low-background materials, such as ancient lead, are sometimes used for especially sensitive equipment.

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