Improving Positron Lifetime Spectra Quality by Suppressing Corrupted Coincidences via Pulse-Height Spectrum Window Adjustments

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to improve positron lifetime spectra quality by adjusting pulse-height spectrum thresholds to suppress corrupted coincidences, enhancing measurement accuracy without hardware changes.

Contribution

It introduces an optimization technique that reduces piled-up events in PALS by tuning the start window threshold, improving data quality in 180° detector setups.

Findings

Suppression of corrupted coincidences improves lifetime measurement accuracy.

Lowering the start window threshold reduces pile-up events effectively.

Timing resolution remains largely unaffected despite IRF broadening.

Abstract

Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy (PALS) is a powerful technique for detecting microstructural defects in various material classes. In a commonly used 180{\deg} detector configuration equipped with plastic scintillators, measurement accuracy is mainly affected by simultaneous detection of 1275 keV and 511 keV gamma quanta in the same detector. This study introduces an optimization approach that significantly improves spectra quality without requiring hardware modifications. By systematically adjusting the upper threshold of the start window in the Pulse Height Spectrum (PHS), this method effectively reduces unwanted 1275/511 piled-up events. Experimental validation with high purity aluminium samples demonstrates that lowering this threshold effectively suppresses corrupted coincidences, yielding extracted characteristic lifetimes closer to those from a 90{\deg} configuration. While a reduced upper threshold slightly broadens the instrument response function (IRF) due to an effectively reduced number of scintillation photons, the overall impact on timing resolution remains negligible. This approach enhances the reliability of PALS measurements while still preserving the benefits of a 180{\deg} configuration, i.e. high solid-angle efficiency.