A Multi-Layer Phoswich Radioxenon Detection System

Laboratory radioactive sources were used to characterize the phoswich detector. The CaF{sub 2} scintillator has a low light-yield and slow decay time, thus produces very small signals due to low-energy gamma rays or X-rays. Therefore, detection of 30 keV X-rays (from the xenon radioisotopes) using this layer and discriminating its very small signals from electronic noise was a challenging task. Several solutions were considered and experimentally evaluated. We found that the best solution would be extending the fast triangular filter from 10 taps to 30 taps. This will extend the peaking time of this filter from 25 nsec to 75 nsec. The digital filter is implemented in FPGA on our DPP2.0 and is used to trigger the detection system. Functionality of the new filter in capturing and discriminating 30 keV X-rays was confirmed by using a {sup 133}Ba gamma-ray source. Development of the DPP GUI software has continued with the addition of two new panels to display histograms of beta/gamma and beta/x-ray coincidence events. This includes coincidence events from a single channel, as well as two-channel, coincidence event. A pileup rejection algorithm has been implemented in the FPGA code, and controls to adjust its sensitivity have been added to themore » GUI. Work has begun on a new prototype system to develop a USB host interface between the PC and the FPGA to end reliance on Opal Kelly prototyping boards; the hardware for this system has been completely assembled, and the PC-side software is currently in development.« less

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