Résumé
The alpha liquid scintillation with / discrimination is an analytical method of interest for the determination of emitters at the trace level. Several authors already suggested its utilization for the detection of radioactivity in environmental samples due to its high sensitivity and a fast sample preparation. Nevertheless, whatever the apparatus used, it suffers a dramatic lack of resolution in comparison with the spectrometry in a grid chamber or with PIPS detectors. The peak shape is often considered nearly Gaussian, which greatly simplifies the deconvolution process (reduction of the number of variables), even for complex spectra. This assertion is quite acceptable for very low activity measurements but can not be applied for measurements using spike standardization. Thus, it became necessary to understand why the asymmetry factor is an intrinsic property for each nuclide.