An open source package for the IBA data format IDF

Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) codes and laboratories implement various formats to store the spectral data and to describe the experimental conditions and simulation or fit parameters. These various data formats are isolated applications and generally incompatible - they are unable to “talk” to each other. The need for a universal IBA data format (IDF) has been recognised for many years to allow easy transfer of data and simulation parameters between codes, as well as between experimentalists and data analysts. A new standard data format, IDF, which is transparent, universal, and includes the most common features desired by both experimentalists who collect and archive data and by users who analyse the data was previously presented. However, its actual implementation has been left to each individual software developer, and the sheer size of the full IDF definition has prevented widespread implementation, with only a few codes using the IDF. Open source software was now developed to implement the IDF, and made available to the community in http://idf.schemas.itn.pt/ both as source code and as a DLL that every code and lab can use to, finally, make data of different origins “talk” to each other. We report the main features of the open source IDF package developed.