With both multichannel scalers and time digitizers, dead times in the counting system can cause distortion of the measured time spectrum. One means of minimizing the distortion is to operate at counting rates low enough to keep dead time losses below 1%. Usually this strategy ensures that the spectrum distortion will be <1%. To achieve this goal one must know the equations linking counting rate, dead times, and dead time losses. Fortunately, these equations lead one to correction algorithms that can be applied in several practical cases to enable operation at significantly higher counting rates.

Case 1:  Δt << Td
        
Case 2:  Td << Δt, with Counts Essentially Constant Across Δt
        
Case 3:  Td ~ Δt

Case 4:  Counting Rates Vary Significantly Across Δt