Absolute peak-efficiency calibration of a well-type germanium detector using multiple gamma-emitting nuclides with the “Solver” add-in in Excel™

When calibrating absolute peak efficiency and total efficiency functions for high efficient germanium detectors, single gamma-emitting nuclides are used in general to avoid coincidence summing effects. As another approach, Blaauw developed calibration technique using multiple gamma-emitting nuclides with least-square technique (Blaauw, 1993, Blaauw and Gelsema, 2003). In the present study, we tried to calibrate efficiency functions of a well-type germanium detector based on Blaauw's approach using a home-made iteration calculation algorithm with the “Solver” add-in in Excel™.