A fast microprocessor controlled data acquisition system for high resolution Mössbauer spectroscopy

We describe a microprocessor controlled data acquisition system designed for Mössbauer spectroscopy which operates in both pulse height analysis and multichannel scaling with high counting rate (> 20 MHz) and resolution (up to 8192 channels per spectrum). The apparatus makes use of two counters and of a double memory block. It is thus possible to obtain a minimum channel-advance dead-time lower than 50 nsec and a minimum dwell-time of 1 μsec. The accumulated data are transferred to a microcomputer for storage and analysis from one of the two blocks while the other continues the acquisition process. The system is totally programmable, and all the acquisition parameters can be easily selected in a wide range.