A fresh approach to NaI scintillation detector spectrum analysis

The introduction of high resolution solid state gamma-ray detectors in the mid-1960s revolutionized the field of gamma-ray spectroscopy. However, scintillation detector spectroscopy systems are still in wide use today in applications in which the cost of solid state detectors are prohibitive, very high detection efficiencis are required, or the cooling systems required for solid state detectors are ruled out by environmental considerations. This paper describes a new minicomputer program that applies modern computational techniques to the analysis of scintillation spectra. The program can resolve multiple overlapping peaks, can compensate for changes in detector gain, and does not require libraries of reference spectra or detector response functions. Complete descriptions of the analysis algorithms are presented. (orig.)