Method and apparatus for storing scintillation pulse height data
AssigneeBeckman Instruments, Inc.
InventorPhilip D. Anderson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for generating scintillation pulse height distribution spectrum with respect to a square root representation of pulse height. Pulse height data are pooled into variable size windows of which the average energy level is approximately proportional to the square of the corresponding window number. The square root representation is accomplished by choosing the size of each window according to an arithmetic series of a constant difference between windows.
Claims14
A method of analyzing scintillations comprising the steps of:
- exposing a sample in a scintillation counter to a scintillation medium thereby emitting scintillations, detecting the scintillations and producing scintillation pulse height data, the pulse height data representing energy levels of the scintillations;
- choosing a plurality of data windows each of a different size corresponding to a range of pulse heights which correspond to a range of energy levels, wherein the sizes of consecutive data windows follow an arithmetic series;
- and
- pooling the pulse height data into the plurality of data windows to obtain a count of the number of occurrences of pulse heights within each data window.
A method of analyzing scintillations comprising the steps of:
- exposing a sample in a scintillation counter to a scintillation medium thereby emitting scintillations, detecting the scintillation and producing scintillation pulse height data, the pulse height data representing energy levels of the scintillations;
- choosing a plurality of data windows each of a different size corresponding to a range of pulse heights which correspond to a range of energy levels, wherein the average energy level of the respective window is approximately proportional to the square of the respective number of the respective window;
- and
- pooling the pulse height data into the plurality of data windows to obtain a count of the number of occurrences of pulse heights within each data window.
An apparatus for analyzing scintillations comprising:
- a scintillation counter which comprises means for exposing a sample to a scintillation medium thereby emitting scintillations, and means for detecting the scintillations and producing scintillation pulse height data representing energy levels of the scintillations;
- means for choosing a plurality of data windows each of a different size corresponding to a range of pulse heights which corresponds to a range of energy levels, wherein the sizes of consecutive data windows follow an arithmetic series;
- and
- means for pooling the pulse height data into the plurality of data windows to obtain a count of the number of occurrences of pulse heights within each data window.
An apparatus for analyzing scintillations comprising:
- a scintillation counter which comprises means for exposing a sample to a scintillation medium thereby emitting scintillations, and means for detecting the scintillations and producing scintillation pulse height data representing energy levels of the scintillations;
- means for choosing a plurality of data windows each of a different size corresponding to a range of pulse heights which corresponds to a range of energy levels, wherein the average energy level of the respective window is approximately proportional to the square of the respective number of the respective window;
- and
- means for pooling the pulse height data into the plurality of data windows to obtain a count of the number of occurrences of pulse heights within each data window.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.