Patent ID: 8115176

Claim:
Method of stabilizing a detector adapted to measure ionizing radiation and produce corresponding output signals, wherein the detector comprises a scintillator adapted to emit light pulses when radiation is at least partly absorbed, and a light detector, a predefined light source adapted to generate light pulses having a width and/or a shape different than a width and/or a shape of the light pulses emitted by the scintillator following the absorption of radiation, and an electronic system adapted to stabilize the detector, the method comprising: digitizing the detector output signals, extracting a pulse height and the pulse width for each individual detector output signal, separating the light source-generated light pulses from all other light pulses on the basis of pulse width, accumulating the light source-generated light pulses for a predetermined time, correcting a gain shift according to a gain shift of the accumulated light source-generated light pulses, separating the scintillator-generated light pukes from all other light pulses on the basis of pulse width, stabilizing the scintillator-generated light pulses by applying the gain shift correction of the light detector, accumulating, the scintillator-generated light pulses for a predetermined time, determining a temperature of the detector at the time of a measurement, using the pulse width of the accumulated scintillator-generated light pulses, and correcting the pulse heights of the detector output signals based on the detected temperature, being dependent from an average pulse width of accumulated scintillator-generated light pulses, wherein the gain shift and temperature for a stabilization time period are determined in parallel to the generation of output signals for the immediately subsequent time period, further comprising dynamically setting a pulse width range of the scintillator-generated light pulses during the generation of output signals on the basis of measured parameters.