Performance testing of two dual-energy pulsers

Abstract

The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) has been developing a dual energy pulser for dead time and random summing corrections, and for the assessment of the quality of the data for many years. This effort now includes several revisions of the original concept. Recently, Canberra has developed a version of this dual energy pulser as part of a technology transfer from INEL to Canberra Industries. This new design includes many of the same characteristics as the original INEL design. In this paper, we will present the results of a series of tests performed at NIEL with both the latest INEL pulser design and the Canberra design. These test results include measurement results of pulser peak width, energy equivalence and dead time and random summing correction capability as a function of count rate and temperature. It is demonstrated that both designs perform comparably with count rate and temperature when operated over a limited temperature range. In applications where extreme temperature variations are likely during the measurements, the INEL design is the better choice.