Calibration of the well-type germanium gamma-ray detector employing two gamma-ray spectra

Since 1992, a method has been under development at IRI to characterise a well-type gamma-ray detector by determination of a peak efficiency and a peak-to-total efficiency curve through measurement of a radionuclide emitting coincident photons, and to compute radionuclide specific counting efficiencies from those curves for “real” peaks as well as for “sum” peaks. Recent improvements to this method have indicated that now, a well-type can be as easy to calibrate and operate as a coaxial detector, once the software is in place. In this paper, the improved calibration method will be described and examples of results given.