Abstract
A CMOS integrated circuit (IC) for pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) has been developed. The IC performs discrimination of gamma-rays and neutrons as part of a monitoring system for stored nuclear materials. The method extracts the pulse tail decay time constant using a leading edge trigger for identifying the start of the pulse and a zero-crossing discriminator to determine the zero crossing of the bipolar shaped signal. The circuit is designed to interface with two photomultiplier tubes - one for pulse processing and one for coincidence detection. Two outputs from the IC, a start and stop, can be used with a high speed timing system for pulse characterization with minimal external control. The circuit was fabricated in Orbit 1.2μm CMOS and operates from a 5-V supply. Specifics of the design including overall topology, charge-sensitive preamplifier and discriminator characteristics, shaping method and time constant selections, system timing, and implementation are discussed. Circuit performance is presented including timing walk, system dead time, and power consumption.
| Original language | English |
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| Pages | 297-301 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| State | Published - 1995 |
| Event | Proceedings of the 1995 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference. Part 1 (of 3) - San Francisco, CA, USA Duration: Oct 21 1995 → Oct 28 1995 |
Conference
| Conference | Proceedings of the 1995 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference. Part 1 (of 3) |
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| City | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| Period | 10/21/95 → 10/28/95 |