High count rate {\gamma}-ray spectroscopy with LaBr3:Ce scintillation detectors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that LaBr3:Ce scintillation detectors can perform high-resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy at count rates exceeding 1 MHz, with digital signal processing and pile-up correction significantly improving performance.

Contribution

The study introduces a digital pile-up correction method that enhances high count rate gamma-ray spectroscopy capabilities of LaBr3:Ce detectors.

Findings

High-resolution spectroscopy at over 1 MHz count rate

Pile-up correction improves efficiency between 500 kHz and 10 MHz

Digital signal processing effectively analyzes high-rate data

Abstract

The applicability of LaBr3:Ce detectors for high count rate {\gamma}-ray spectroscopy is investigated. A 3"x3" LaBr3:Ce detector is used in a test setup with radioactive sources to study the dependence of energy resolution and photo peak efficiency on the overall count rate in the detector. Digitized traces were recorded using a 500 MHz FADC and analysed with digital signal processing methods. In addition to standard techniques a pile-up correction method is applied to the data in order to further improve the high-rate capabilities and to reduce the losses in efficiency due to signal pile-up. It is shown, that {\gamma}-ray spectroscopy can be performed with high resolution at count rates even above 1 MHz and that the performance can be enhanced in the region between 500 kHz and 10 MHz by using pile-up correction techniques.