An automatic NAA analyzer for short-lived nuclides

An automatic activation analyzer with sample changer, pneumatic transfer system and fast pulse counting with real time pulse pile-up and dead time compensation is described. Transfer times between 80 and 300 ms from irradiation position to measurement station can be obtained. Counting losses are corrected within 10% up to total count rates of 120 kc/s.     

Maintaining Accuracy in Gamma-Ray Spectrometry at High Count Rates

Gamma-ray spectrometry losses through pulse processing dead time and pile-up are best assayed with an external pulse technique. In this work, the virtual pulse generator technique as implemented commercially with the Westphal loss free counting (LFC) module is set up and tested with four high resolution gamma-ray spectrometers. Dual source calibration and decaying source techniques are used in the evaluation of the accuracy of the correction technique. Results demonstrate the reliability of the LFC with a standardized conventional pulse processing system. The accurate correction during high rate counting, including during rapid decay of short lived activities, has been the basis for highly precise determinations in reference materials studies.     

Determination of counting losses and pile-up rejection in ionizing radiation spectrometry

The spectrometric system for ionizing radiation measurement with pile-up rejection and counting losses correction has been described. The results for HpGe, Ge(Li), Si(Li) and surface barrier detectors have been presented. The total count rate ranged from 500 to 10⁵ cps and different radioisotopes have been used. The counting losses correction accuracy has been within ±1% with tenfold reduction of background from pile-up pulses. The possibility of the system application for radiation intensity measurement of the mixture of short- and longlived radioisotopes has been discussed.     

Measurement of neutrons from an electron accelerator by rem-counter

In the measurement of neutrons from the medical electron accelerator by a rem counter, two problems disturb accurate measurements. One is the pile-up of signals produced by X-rays during each X-ray burst and the other is the increased counting loss caused by bunched nature of yielded neutrons. The time spectrum of neutrons measured by the rem counter 2202 D (manufactured by Studsvik) rises up to a maximum value by about 20 microseconds and then falls down exponentially with a time constant of about 90 microseconds. On the other hand, that of X-rays is roughly rectangular with several microseconds width. A time discriminating system was prepared to be combined with the rem counter, which was triggered by leading edge of electron beam pulses, rejected pile-up signals due to X-ray bursts, and counted pulses of neutrons in a specified time window. The system discriminated the pile-up enough to measure neutrons at a X-ray dose rate of at least 30 mGy/h. Nonparalyzable counting loss correction was practicable upto about 10 mSv/h for the beam pulse rate of 85 Hz, in which the dead time of the rem counter was estimated as 4 microseconds.     

Determination of Al,Ca, V and Mn by INAA: Application to the Reference Material IAEA-395 “Urban Dust”

Instrumental NAA based on short-lived radionuclides implies high initial total count rates which change appreciably over the counting period. This in turn necessitates corrections for three negative biases: losses due to differences in counting time between samples and standards; pile-up losses, and (residual) influence of dead-time. The procedure is demonstrated for the determination of Al, Ca, V and Mn in the IAEA Reference Material 395 Urban Dust. The obtained data are in good agreement with the reference values for this material. By limiting the total relative dead-time to 25%, statistical uncertainties are below 5%.     

An innovative method for dead time correction in nuclear spectroscopy

All nuclear spectroscopy systems, whether measuring charged particles, X-rays, or gamma-rays, exhibit dead time losses during the counting process due to pulse processing in the electronics. Several techniques have been employed in an effort to reduce the effects of dead time losses on a spectroscopy system including live time clocks and loss-free counting modules. Live time extension techniques give accurate results when measuring samples in which the activity remains roughly constant during the measuring process (i.e., the dead time does not change significantly during a single measurement period). The loss-free counting method of correcting for dead time losses, as introduced by HARMS and improved by WESTPHAL (US Patent No. 4,476,384) give better results than live time extension techniques when the counting rate changes significantly during the measurement. However, loss-free counting methods are limited by the fact that an estimation of the uncertainty associated with the spectral counts can not be easily determined, because the corrected data no longer obeys Poisson statistics. Therefore, accurate analysis of the spectral data including the uncertainty calculations is difficult to achieve. The Ortec® DSPEC ^PLUS implements an improved zero dead time method that accurately predicts the uncertainty from counting statistics and overcomes the limitations of previous loss-free counting methods. The uncertainty in the dead-time corrected spectrum is calculated and stored with the spectral data (Patent Pending). The GammaVision-32® analysis algorithm has been improved to propagate this uncertainty through the activity calculation. Two experiments are set up to verify these innovations. The experiments show that the new method gives the same reported activity and associated uncertainties as the well-proven Gedcke-Hale live time clock. It is thus shown that over a wide range of dead times the new ZDT method tracks the true counting rate as if it had zero dead time, and yields an accurate estimation of the statistical uncertainty in the reported counts.     

Simple methods for dead-time and pile-up corrections in analytical gamma-ray spectrometry

In the paper the mathematical methods for dead-time and pile-up corrections are discussed. The dead-time correction formulae for a system of two short-lived isotopes and constant component (background) are reported which mathematical problem has not been solved so far. The new electronic circuit for simultaneous measurements of clock- and live- (or dead-) times is described. It is shown that using this circuit one can correct the counting loss for both effects simultaneously. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of mathematical methods for dead-time and pile-up corrections are discussed based on the authors' several-year laboratory practice.     

Application of short-lived isotopes spectrometry coupled with k0 standardization to the neutron activation analysis of geological materials

The described procedure is purely instrumental. The aim is to determine efficiently the elemental composition of geological materials by neutron activation, using short-lived isotopes. Our procedure requires the use of a gamma-spectrometric system fitted with a real time correction module for the counting losses and the quasi absolute k₀-method. Consequently, the two constraints inherent in the analysis of short-lived isotopes, i.e. decreasing dead time counting and relative standardization were overcome.     

Validation of a loss-free counting system for neutron activation analysis with short-lived indicators

The use of loss-free counting systems makes possible the exact correction for pile-up and dead-time losses during counting of a mixture of short-lived radionuclides even at very high count rates. However, counting statistics cannot be calculated by taking into account only the Poisson distribution of the incoming -quanta, such as is done in existing computer programs for -spectrometry. At moderate count rates Müller statistic was found to account for the observed variability between duplicate countings; however, at higher count rates the variability of weighing factors was found to be significant in comparison with the Müller statistic. While counting statistics could not be correctly estimated for short-lived species, experiments showed excellent accuracy for initial dead times up to 90%.     

Instrumental correction of time dependent counting losses in high rate gamma-ray spectrometry

A CAMAC system was installed for pulse height analysis and correction of counting losses due to the dead-time of a multichannel analyzer and the pulse pile-up. A computer program was developed to control the whole system, and to collect and store data in both conventional and cyclic measurement modes.     

Loss-free counting with a digital spectrometer and a software program

The computer program LFREE was written to do loss-free counting with a digital spectrometer. It runs in parallel with the normal data acquisition software and corrects the counting losses once per second without interrupting data acquisition. The spectrometer's live time clock is used to measure the live time fraction. Tests showed that losses are accurately corrected at variable count rates which cause dead times as high as 80%. For half-lives of the order of 10 seconds, the accuracy is limited by the response of the live time clock to very rapidly changing count rates.     

A software counting loss correction method for neutron activation analysis with short-lived radionuclides

A method has been developed for the correction of counting losses in NAA for the case of a mixture of short-lived radionuclides. It is applicable to systems with Ge detectors and Wilkinson or successive approximation ADC's and will correct losses from pulse pileup and ADC dead time up to 90%. The losses are modeled as a constant plus time-dependent terms expressed as a fourth order polynomial function of the count rates of the short-lived radionuclides. The correction factors are calculated iteratively using the peak areas of the short-lived radionuclides in the spectrum and the average losses as given by the difference between the live time and true time clocks of the MCA. To calibrate the system a measurement is performed for each short-lived nuclide. In a test where the dead time varied from 70% at the start of the measurement to 13% at the end, the measured activities were corrected with an accuracy of 1%.     

Another method of dead time correction

A new method of the correction of counting losses caused by a non-extended dead time of pulse detection systems is presented. The approach is based on the distribution of time intervals between pulses at the output of the system.     

Comparisons of several dead time correction methods in the case of a mixture of short- and long-lived nuclides

Several dead time correction methods were compared experimentally with the exact correction method and their limits were discussed. These correction methods were applied to neutron activation analysis of a biological sample. A special electronic circuit and an additional counting equipment were used to obtain the fractional dead time with a suficiently high frequency.     

Fast neutron activation analysis using short-lived radionuclides

Fast neutron activation analysis experiments were performed to investigate the analytical possibilities and prospective utilization of short-lived activation products. A rapid pneumatic transfer system for use with neutron generators has been installed and applied for detecting radionuclides with a half-life from 300 ms to 20 s. The transport time for samples of total mass of 1–4 g is between 130 and 160 ms for pressurized air of 0.1–0.4 MPa. The reproducibility of transport times is less than 2%. The employed method of correcting time-dependent counting losses is based on the virtual pulse generator principle. The measuring equipment consists of CAMAC modules and a special gating circuit. Typical time distributions of counting losses are presented. The same 14 elements were studied by the conventional activation method (single irradiation and single counting) by both a typical pneumatic transport system (run time 3 s) and the fast pneumatic transport facility. Furthermore, the influence of the cyclic activation technique on the elemental sensitivities was investigated.     

Determination of Wyttenbach correction factors in neutron activation system dedicated to trace element analysis of geological samples

Elemental abundances determined by neutron activation usually result from comparisons of gamma-ray intensities in samples (unknown concentrations) and standards (known concentrations). If the samples and standards have large differences in gamma-ray intensity significant errors arise from coincidence losses resulting from pulse pile-up. The resolving times (the Wyttenbach factor of 2/) of four semiconductor germanium detectors coupled to three different multichannel analyzers used for routine activation analysis are determined with and without pile-up rejector. The errors caused by pulse pile-up in trace element abundance determination of different geological samples are tabulated.     

A low cost spectrum multiscaling analyzer based on personal computer for studying the decay properties of short-lived nuclides

A low cost spectrum multiscaling analyzer system based on an IBM PC is described. Interrupt service routines were used to handle both the digital data converted by ADC and record the dead time profile. A dead time counter was provided to handle the dead time problem by counting the busy time of amplifier and ADC, which is important in correcting the decay rate of the short-lived nuclides during the counting interval.     

High-precision energy-dispersive x-ray fluorescence analysis of manganese in ferromanganese

A high-precision x-ray fluorescence method for the determination of manganese in ferromanganese is described. The method involves excitation of the sample with a ¹⁰⁹Cd isotopic source and measurement with a high-resolution Si(Li) detector. To preserve the optimal energy resolution even at high count rates, the system incorporates a pulsed optical feedback preamplifier and a pulse pile-up rejector. The rejected pulses are corrected for by means of an adequate live-time correction circuit. Processing of the spectra is accomplished with the aid of a digital computer. The relative precision of the method is approximately 0.2%.     

Pile-Up Correction for Improved Accuracy and Speed of X-Ray Analysis

Despite advances in electronic design, pile-up artefacts are still common in EDX spectra and can lead to false element identifications, inaccurate correction for peak overlap and losses of counts that give poor quantitative results. With the capability to do spectrum imaging there is increasing temptation to work at count rates far beyond the correction capability of pile-up inspection electronics. Fundamental limitations due to noise are explained and a new correction procedure is described that implements a comprehensive channel-by-channel correction for pile-up. Practical examples are given that demonstrate the range of application of the new algorithm and show that, with correction, count rates at least 4 times higher can be used with no sacrifice in performance.     

Coincidence counting for PGNAA applications: Is it the optimum method?

Summary One of the main advantages of γ-γ coincidence counting is the reduction of the background spectrum, pulse pile-up, and summing effects (for simple schemes). For prompt gamma-ray neutron activation analysis (PGNAA), the sources of background include the gamma-rays from the natural background, from surrounding materials, from the neutron source, and from detector neutron activation. While this counting approach effectively increases the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, it also decreases the signal counting rate. This adds some practical limitations to using this approach. In this work, two examples are presented for the efficient use of the coincidence counting approach.