5nsec Dead time multichannel scaling system for Mössbauer spectrometer

A PC programmable and fast multichannel scaling module has been designed to use a commercial Mössbauer spectrometer. This module is based on a 10$ single chip 8 bits microcomputer (MC6805) and on a 35$ fast ALU, which allows a high performance and low cost system. The module can operate in a stand-alone mode. Data analysis are performed in real time display, on XT/AT IBM PC or compatibles. The channels are ranged between 256 and 4096, the maximum number of counts is 232−1 per channel, the dwell time is 3 μsec and the dead time between channels is 5 nsec. A friendly software display the real time spectrum and offers menues with different options at each state.