Neutron time-of-flight spectroscopy measurement using a waveform digitizer

The photoneutron source （PNS, phase 1）, an electron linear accelerator （linac）-based pulsed neutron facility that uses the time-of-flight （TOF） technique, was constructed for the acquisition of nuclear data from the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor （TMSR） at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics （SINAP）. The neutron detector signal used for TOF calculation, with information on the pulse arrival time, pulse shape, and pulse height, was recorded by using a waveform digitizer （WFD）. By using the pulse height and pulse-shape discrimination （PSD） analysis to identify neutrons and ＂y-rays, the neutron TOF spectrum was obtained by employing a simple electronic design, and a new WFD-based DAQ system was developed and tested in this commissioning experiment. The DAQ system developed is characterized by a very high efficiency with respect to millisecond neutron TOF spectroscopy.

A new method of waveform digitization based on time-interleaved A/D conversion

Time interleaved analog-to-digital conversion （TIADC） based on parallelism is an effective way to meet the requirement of the ultra-fast waveform digitizer beyond Gsps. Different methods to correct the mismatch errors among different analog-to-digital conversion channels have been developed previously. To overcome the speed limi- tation in hardware design and to implement the mismatch correction algorithm in real time, this paper proposes a fully parallel correction algorithm. A 12-bit l-Gsps waveform digitizer with ENOB around 10.5 bit from 5 MHz to 200 MHz is implemented based on the real-time correction algorithm.

Waveform digitizing for LaBr_3/NaI phoswich detector

The detection efficiency of phoswich detector starts to decrease when Compton scattering becomes significant. Events with energy deposit in both scintillators, if not rejected, are not useful for spectral analysis as the full energy of the incident photon cannot be reconstructed with conventional readout. We show that once the system response is carefully calibrated, the full energy of those double deposit events can be reconstructed using a waveform digitizer as the readout. Our experiment suggests that the efficiency of a photopeak at 662 keV can be increased by a factor of 2 using our LaBr3/NaI phoswich detector.

System design for precise digitization and readout of the CSNS-WNS BaF2 spectrometer

The BaF2 （barium fluoride） spectrometer is one of the experiment facilities at the CSNS-WNS（White Neutron Source at China Spallation Neutron Source）, currently under construction. It is designed to precisely measure the（n, γ） cross section, with 92 crystal elements and complete 4π steradian coverage. In order to improve the precision of measurement, in this paper, a new precise digitization and readout method is proposed. Waveform digitizing with 1 GSps sampling rate and 12-bit resolution is used to precisely capture the detector signal. To solve the problem of massive data readout and processing, the readout electronics is designed as a distributed architecture with 4 PXIe crates. The digitized signal is concentrated to the PXIe crate controller through a PCIe bus on the backplane and transmitted to the data acquisition system over gigabit Ethernet in parallel. Besides, the clock and trigger can be fanned out synchronously to every electronic channel over a high-precision distribution network. Test results show that the prototype of the readout electronics can achieve good performance and meet the requirements of the CSNS-WNS BaF2 spectrometer.

The data acquisition algorithm designed for the SiPM-based detectors of GECAM satellite

Background The Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor(GECAM)consists of 2 microsatellites,each of which contains 25 GRD(LaBr3)detectors and 8 CPD(plastic scintillator)detectors.Method silicon photomultiplier(SiPM)array is used to read each detector.The output signal of these detectors with SiPM array is very special and challenging to readout.In this study,a novel data acquisition(DAQ)algorithm for these detectors is designed and implemented,and the content of the output event packet is defined.Result and Conclusion The performances,including the event acquisition efficiency of this DAQ algorithm,are extensively verified through experimental tests.From the on-ground and in-flight tests,this algorithm has excellent performance despite the very limited resources and short development time of GECAM mission.