High speed acquisition and handling of scanning proton microprobe data

Abstract The collection of high count rate data on a scanning proton microprobe from a number of detectors simultaneously requires much attention to both hardware and software detail. With fast data acquisition and rapid data handling coupled with high resolution graphics, a microprobe provides a powerful analytical instrument. Several considerations favour the use of event by event mode for data collection. Rapid data handling requires the provision of individual, fast ADCs for each detector. A controlling host computer must record each energy event together with the positional coordinates of the event as it was generated at the specimen. The task of the resident host software ranges from dumping the data on to magnetic tape or disk to a full online, realtime SORT to enable the mapping of elemental distributions on high resolution colour monitors as data is being collected. The evolution of total quantative scanning analysis will be described from its inception on a small mini-computer to the present time. The principles of high speed data capture and processing as associated with the more powerful, present day computers integrating high resolution graphics will be discussed, including the development of fast data acquisition hardware and multidimensional display programs.