A simple method for calculating an energy spectrum for defect annealing from a constant heating rate experiment

Abstract A method is presented for deriving the spectrum of activation energies for defect annealing of specimens under linear heating conditions. In analogy with a previously published paper on isothermal data analysis, the basic integral equation is rewritten using a convolution integral, which can be solved using an iterative Fourier analysis. In practical cases, convergence is already reached after a few iterations. The method turns out to be very rapid and efficient; the number of data points processed in the analysis can be made very large. Because the calculated spectrum is the exact solution of the basic integral equation, the energy resolution of the present method is mainly determined by the errors on the experimental data.