A multi-channel digital acquisition system for Ge spectroscopy in the GERDA experiment

Author

Riboldi, Stefano ; Ur, Calin A. ; Bellato, Marco ; Cattadori, Carla ; Andragora, Alessio D. ; Vacri, Assunta Di ; Isocrate, Roberto ; Manea, Christian ; Pullia, Alberto ; Alvarez, Carlo Rossi ; Rusu, Claudiu ; Zocca, Francesca

Author_Institution

Phys. Dept., Univ. degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

fYear

2010

fDate

Oct. 30 2010-Nov. 6 2010

Firstpage

758

Lastpage

761

Abstract

We developed a multi-channel digital acquisition (DAQ) system, able to operate in connection to Germanium-based detectors and state-of-the-art charge sensitive preamplifiers. The DAQ system is composed of up to 6 front-end NIM modules, each one with 4 free running analog to digital converters (100 MHz, 14 bits) and up to 6 custom PCI based receiver boards inside a single personal computer (PC). We also implemented a comprehensive graphical user interface on the user PC and a digital triggering algorithm inside the DAQ system by means of programmable logic devices (FPGA) and a suitable global slow control for the whole system. The performances of the DAQ system in terms of energy resolution, sustained data transfer rate, digital trigger sensitivity, etc. are all within the specifications of the GERDA experiment for Phase-I.

Keywords

analogue-digital conversion; data acquisition; field programmable gate arrays; germanium radiation detectors; graphical user interfaces; high energy physics instrumentation computing; nuclear electronics; particle spectrometers; preamplifiers; trigger circuits; FPGA; GERDA experiment; PCI based receiver board; analog-to-digital converter; data transfer rate; digital trigger sensitivity; digital triggering algorithm; energy resolution; front-end NIM module; germanium spectroscopy; germanium-based detector; global slow control system; graphical user interface; multichannel digital acquisition system; state-of-the-art charge sensitive preamplifier; Calibration; Channel estimation; Data acquisition; Detectors; Electronic mail; Energy resolution; Preamplifiers;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record (NSS/MIC), 2010 IEEE

Conference_Location

Knoxville, TN

ISSN

1095-7863

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9106-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NSSMIC.2010.5873860

Filename

5873860