Deconvolution of 2D coincident Doppler broadening spectroscopy using the Richardson–Lucy algorithm

Coincident Doppler Broadening Spectroscopy (CDBS) measurements are popular in positron solid-state studies of materials. By utilizing the instrumental resolution function obtained from a gamma line close in energy to the 511 keV annihilation line, it is possible to significantly enhance the quality of the CDBS spectra using deconvolution algorithms. In this paper, we compare two algorithms, namely the Non-Negativity Least Squares (NNLS) regularized method and the Richardson–Lucy (RL) algorithm. The latter, which is based on the method of maximum likelihood, is found to give superior results to the regularized least-squares algorithm and with significantly less computer processing time.