Patent ID: 8384016

Claim:
An apparatus comprising a calibration source and a gamma-ray spectrometer, comprising: a radioactive material comprising a radioactive isotope having a decay transition associated with emission of a radiation particle and a gamma-ray having a known energy; a solid-state detector arranged to receive radiation particles emitted from the radioactive material; and a gating circuit coupled to the solid-state detector, and wherein the gating circuit is operable to generate a gating signal in response to detection of a radiation particle in the solid-state detector, and to output the gating signal for receipt by a data acquisition circuit of a gamma-ray spectrometer to indicate that gamma-ray detection in the gamma-ray spectrometer occurring within a time window defined by the gating signal is associated with a decay transition in the radioactive isotope, wherein the gamma-ray spectrometer comprises a data acquisition circuit operable to process detection signals associated with gamma-ray detections occurring within time windows defined by the gating signal, to calculate an energy spectrum for the detection events, to compare the calculated energy spectrum for the detection events with the known energies of gamma-rays associated with the radioactive material in the calibration source, and to determine correction factors for the data acquisition circuit for multiple energies based on differences between the calculated energies and the known energies.