Gamma ray scintillator response and unscrambling of pulse height spectra

The program presented in this paper can be used to obtain the energy spectrum for photons incident on a scintillation detector from the measured pulse height spectrum. A data library of experimental responses to known and calibrated monoenergetic radioactive sources is used. The detector response to any gamma photon energy is obtained by a method of interpolation using cubic spline functions. A characteristic detector response matrix can then be constructed. Using such a matrix with an iterative method which compares the calculated with the experimental result, it is possible to obtain the incident photon energy spectrum from any detected spectrum. (Auth.)