Electronic Design for Multichannel Coincidence Digital Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectrometer

Abstract

Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy (PALS) is a non-destructive spectroscopy technique that can study various phenomena and material properties on an atomic scale. As the traditional analog PALS spectrometers built with multiple nuclear instrument modules gradually showed performance defects due to accuracy limitations and long-term instability, the digital PALS spectrometers began to become popular. However, most digital PALS spectrometers based on oscilloscopes or digitizers are expensive. In order to reduce costs while maintaining high rate counts, this paper proposes an electronic design for a multichannel coincidence digital positron annihilation lifetime spectrometer. Eight identical signal channels are used in the design. Each channel contains an energy measurement circuit and a timing circuit. The analog front-end electronics is designed, simulated, manufactured, and tested. The results show that it has fine linear amplification, well shaping function, low output noise, and sufficient bandwidth. After the firmware and software development is completed, further testing and performance verification will be carried out.