The X-ray performance of a driftless gas proportional scintillation counter using short shaping-time constants for pulse analysis

Abstract

Performance characteristics are evaluated for a xenon driftless gas proportional scintillation counter (GPSC), for which detector pulses are formatted using very short shaping-time constants (~50 ns), and directly analyzed by the MCA without previous pulse time duration analysis and amplitude correction. The present detector and method allow the achievement of detector energy linearity and energy resolution similar to those of conventional GPSCs, reducing background levels and maximizing the detector count-rate capability. However, the obtained peak tails can be somewhat larger than those obtained with conventional GPSCs for X-ray energies above ~30 keV. Energy resolutions of 7.7%, 4.5% and 3.8% can be achieved for 5.9, 22.1 and 59.6 keV X-rays, respectively.