Gamma Spectrum DB

[NuclearPhoenix]

Hi everyone,

When I started with my own first steps in gamma spectroscopy I found that the sample gamma spectra in the Gamma Spectrum Database (https://www.gammaspectacular.com/blue/gamma_spectra) were really helpful for debugging the detector with zero prior experience of what a spectrum should even look like.

Now that I have access to a lot of common and also pretty exotic spectra (most of those used in medicine) made with an HPGe detector, I decided to compile my own database of gamma spectra and open-source everything. All of this is non-commercial by the way and I already have 30 different spectra in stock. Here's a link to the site:

https://gammadb.nuclearphoenix.xyz/

I'm using special interactive plots too so that everything looks nice and consistent and you never run into resolution problems when zooming into images. Needless to say, you can also export images if you want to by clicking the camera icon in the plots.

However, here comes the problem... the resolution is too good and most people don't casually have an HPGe detector lying around. That's where I need a little bit of help. I can record some spectra with my own scintillation detector, but I'm currently limited in the things I have access to and to improve the database for everyday users and newcomers we need more (scintillator) spectra.

If you want to submit some of your own spectra, I have written a little tutorial on how to do so:

https://gammadb.nuclearphoenix.xyz/jeky ... or-action/

PS: I know there are tons of professional catalogues (e.g., https://gammaray.inl.gov/Shared%20Documents/naicat.pdf and https://gammaray.inl.gov/Shared%20Documents/gecat.pdf
), but I don't think these are as easy to use and find your way around as a simple website -- especially for newcomers. There's software like Interspec too that provides some example spectra, but you need to install that afaik.

[kotarak]

I think what you have done is quite useful and an amazing resource! I would absolutely love to see this DB for NaI / CsI detectors as well! I will check out your tutorial and see if I can add any of the spectrums I got.
Unfortunately, when comes to NaI people use different sizes detectors, different amount and type of shielding, different geometry of sample vs. detector, linearity can be different, etc and sometimes wrong HV or wrong settings for pulse acquisition are used. All these produce good amount of variations in the observed spectrum. Collecting spectrums from random sources might result in too many inconsistencies. If there is a way to "standardize" the test environment and conditions then the database will look more consistent IMHO.

[NuclearPhoenix]

Hi Andrey,

thank you for your feedback. I absolutely agree with you on the test environment problems, however, I just didn't want to make the process of submitting spectra more complicated for now.
I know about the extreme niche of this topic and how many people would visit the site so to be entirely honest I'm happy if I get some new spectra of good quality. For the time being that would make it drastically more useful for the average user.

Matthias

[Mike S]

I checked it out and it looks like a cool idea which I strongly support. Please take my comments as an enthusiastic wish list.

• I'd like to have the option of showing it in a larger window/frame/whatever so I can see more detail without scrolling around and zooming.

• I can't figure out how to get the Y-axis as a log scale.

• It would be nice to have the peaks labeled in keV instead of having to read them off of the scale at the bottom. I realize that might not fit with what your vision for an easily zoomable spectra, and that's OK.

• Being able to sort by detector type would be handy (once you build up a database of other detectors)

I tried a few spectra files to see if I could get them to show on the Gamma MCA app but was not successful. I assume there's a particular CSV format it's looking for and my best guesses didn't work. Along the same lines, a good portion of hobiests use PRA and Theremino which provide TXT files; it would be great if Gamma MCA could import those directly.

Mike S.

[NuclearPhoenix]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your wish list, I'll look into the axes scaling. I think some kind of full screen plot or even larger windows would be a great addition indeed! The plots are all just HTML files themselves, so I could just link the files directly so that you can open them in a new window. They would then take up the entire browser window.

The peak labels would be pretty easy to add too (at least for most of the spectra), I just have to re-export all of the spectra from Gamma MCA with the peak detection on.

Regarding sorting by detector type: I had originally planned to add all the spectra of the same nuclide made with different detectors within the same page and just do some drop downs or something like that by type. I can also add categories to the isotope pages so that you can quickly sort by what isotopes are available for detector type x and so on.

Now to your issue; what type of file did you try to import? Maybe please send me the files you tried and failed to import so that I can look into the data structure and fix it. I haven't yet had any problems with file import so that comes to a bit of a surprise to me, honestly. Typically the app uses files with histogram data inside where every x-axis point has their own line. Did the data import fail or were you unable to select files because of their file ending?

[NuclearPhoenix]

Just fixed the issue with theremino pulse height diagrams in Gamma MCA. I downloaded the theremino MCA and exported an empty diagram (don't have any theremino-compatible devices), which shows up correctly now. The only remaining issue with these kinds of files is that the x-axis doesn't get imported so you need to calibrate the axis again. Other than that I hope it's working now, you can always send me the files you got problems with and I'll fix it.

Matthias R