Radionuclide identification for plastic scintillation detectors by backward cumulative channel sum
Abstract
Large-area plastic scintillation detectors are widely used in radiation portal monitors, but their Compton-dominated spectra provide limited radionuclide-specific information. We evaluated backward cumulative channel sum (BCCS) combined with non-negative least-squares (NNLS) decomposition and compared it with raw-spectrum NNLS using an explicit background template and detector-specific five-window NNLS. A measured background and fixed reference spectra for Am-241, Cs-137, and Co-60 were used to analyze 18 independent spectra: nine single-radionuclide measurements, eight binary mixtures, and one ternary mixture. The mixed-source compositions were concealed during the primary BCCS analysis. All three methods ranked the actual radionuclide first for every single-radionuclide spectrum and the two constituents first and second for every binary mixture; the ternary mixture yielded positive coefficients for all three radionuclides. For the nine mixed-source spectra, method-specific relative residuals were 0.48–1.31% for BCCS-NNLS, 0.88–1.60% for raw-spectrum NNLS, and 0.11–0.50% for five-window NNLS; these values were calculated in different representation spaces and should not be compared as equivalent goodness-of-fit measures. Parametric Poisson resampling supported stable coefficient rankings under counting-statistical variation. These results support BCCS-NNLS as a simple, linear, and interpretable approach for static, unshielded measurements within a fixed radionuclide library, without hardware modification or data-intensive training. The study does not address open-set identification, activity quantification, or formal detection limits.
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BibTeX
@article{so2026radionuclide,
title = {{Radionuclide identification for plastic scintillation detectors by backward cumulative channel sum}},
author = {Ji-Yong So and Byoungil Jeon and Myungkook Moon},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1038/s41598-026-75400-8},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-75400-8},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Radionuclide identification for plastic scintillation detectors by backward cumulative channel sum
AU - Ji-Yong So
AU - Byoungil Jeon
AU - Myungkook Moon
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/17
JO - Scientific Reports
DO - 10.1038/s41598-026-75400-8
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-75400-8
AB - Large-area plastic scintillation detectors are widely used in radiation portal monitors, but their Compton-dominated spectra provide limited radionuclide-specific information. We evaluated backward cumulative channel sum (BCCS) combined with non-negative least-squares (NNLS) decomposition and compared it with raw-spectrum NNLS using an explicit background template and detector-specific five-window NNLS. A measured background and fixed reference spectra for Am-241, Cs-137, and Co-60 were used to analyze 18 independent spectra: nine single-radionuclide measurements, eight binary mixtures, and one ternary mixture. The mixed-source compositions were concealed during the primary BCCS analysis. All three methods ranked the actual radionuclide first for every single-radionuclide spectrum and the two constituents first and second for every binary mixture; the ternary mixture yielded positive coefficients for all three radionuclides. For the nine mixed-source spectra, method-specific relative residuals were 0.48–1.31% for BCCS-NNLS, 0.88–1.60% for raw-spectrum NNLS, and 0.11–0.50% for five-window NNLS; these values were calculated in different representation spaces and should not be compared as equivalent goodness-of-fit measures. Parametric Poisson resampling supported stable coefficient rankings under counting-statistical variation. These results support BCCS-NNLS as a simple, linear, and interpretable approach for static, unshielded measurements within a fixed radionuclide library, without hardware modification or data-intensive training. The study does not address open-set identification, activity quantification, or formal detection limits.
SN - 2045-2322
ER -