Monte Carlo simulations of Germanium detector efficiency curves

The use of Germanium detectors to study gamma-rays has become common practice in most modern science laboratories. These detectors often need to be calibrated and characterized for different gamma-ray source geometries, energies, and source-to-detector distances. The use of Monte Carlo based simulations allows one to perform these characterizations in the absence of radioactive material and for arbitrary experimental setups. The usefulness of these simulations and Monte Carlo based codes for modeling Germanium detector efficiencies is studied here. Two C language programs have also been written to perform analysis of efficiency curves and multiple decay components.