Calibrating detectors with Pychron

Use the ICFactor pipeline to calculate ICFactors for your detectors. An ICFactor is a multiplier applied to the isotope intensity. The simplest approach is to make all detectors relative to one reference detector. The reference detector (e.g. H1) will always have an ICFactor of 1. To calculate the ICFactor for your CDD measure an airshot of known 40/36 composition (e.g. 295.5) by multicollectiong 40 on H1 and 36 on CDD. Setup you ICFactor pipeline with Numerator=H1, denominator=CDD and standard ratio=295.5

For calibrating detectors using a peak hop the procedure is similar. Measure Ar40 on all detectors. setup your ICfactor pipeline with Numerator=H1, denominator=AX, standard ratio =1, repeat for additional detectors.

Below is an example of setting an ICFactor for AX using an airshot with a known 40/39 ratio.

Running ICFactor Pipeline

1. Open Pipeline Window
2. Select Fit/ICFactor
3. Double click to run or click the Run button. This will start the pipeline
4. The pipeline consistents of 6 nodes.
   1. UnknownNode - Select a set of unknowns using the browser. These are the analyses you want to apply the icfactor to.
   2. FindReferencesNode - Select a set of reference analyses based on the unknown selection. These are the analyses used to calculate the icfactor
   3. ReferenceNode - This node simply stores the selected references
   4. FitICFactorNode - Configure how the icfactor(s) are calculated. multiply icfactors can be calculated at once depending on how the reference analyses were made
   5. ReviewNode - This node pauses the pipeline and allows you to review the results. you can change fits, delete points etc. to continue and save click the Resume button
   6. ICFactorPersistNode - Applies the icfactors to the selected unknowns and save and commits the changes to the appropriate repositories.