Temperature Dependence of NaI(Tl) Radiation Scintillation Detectors’ Characteristics

Abstract

Scintillators belong to the oldest types of radiati on detectors. Nowadays, for spectrometric purposes the use of semiconductive detectors is more common, but scintillation detectors are still in use for various specific measurement purposes. We have investigated the dependence of a gamma spectrum measured by NaI(Tl) scintillation detector on temperature changes. We examined the need of ene rgy or efficiency recalibration and software compensation. Due to temperature depen dence, scintillation detectors require energy recalibration before environmental a nd outdoor measurements or before the use of etalon sources for obtaining spectr um for follow-up calibration. We have elaborated on a simple method for energy recal ibration of scintillation detectors at different temperatures. This method was converte d into an algorithm and it can be either burned into instrument EPROM or used in soft ware processing.