PEAKFIND: a FORTRAN program for locating and fitting peaks in semiconductor detector spectra

A FORTRAN program is described which locates peaks in semiconductor detector spectra and then fits a skewed-Gaussia ine shape to certain of these peaks to determine centroids, areas, and peak shape parameters. The user may adjust the strictness of criteria used in the peak location procedure to permit the identification of virtually anything that might possibly be a peak, or he may specify that only well-defined peaks are to be found. An estimate is made of the centroid, energy, and intensity (corrected for the energy dependence of the detector efficiency) for each peak found. Fitting is then performed only where the estimated peak intensity exceeds a lower limit specified by the user. Alternatively, the user may specify which specific peaks he wishes to have fitted. The nonlinear least-squares fitting method is a modification of the procedure used in the companion program SKEWGAUS. PEAKFIND normally requires the user to supply only four input data cards for the analysis of a whole multichannel analyzer spectrum, and if default options are chosen for most parameters these cards will be largely blank. (U.S.)