A new method for post-acquisition correction of spectral distortion due to pulse pileup

A technique is demonstrated for the correction of spectral distortion caused by the first-order pulse pileup. The algorithm is applied to the correction of high count rate spectra acquired from a 10-cm*10-cm*40-cm scintillation crystal for pulse pileup. The demonstrated technique has the following advantages over hardware pulse pileup rejectors: no complicated and expensive hardware (which might have adverse side effects on other aspects of the acquisition process) is required; and since these devices reject on the basis of pulse width, they cannot detect near perfect overlaps, which will therefore always be accepted.<>