Development of front-end readout electronics for silicon strip detectors

Front-end readout electronics have been developed for silicon strip detectors at our institute. In this system an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) ATHED is used to realize multi-channel energy and time measurements. The slow control of ASIC chips is achieved by parallel port and the timing control signals of ASIC chips are implemented with the CPLD. The data acquisition is carried out with a PXI-DAQ card. The software has a user-friendly GUI developed with LabWindows/CVI in the Windows XP operating system. The test results show that the energy resolution is about 1.14% for alpha at 5.48 MeV and the maximum channel crosstalk of the system is 4.60%. The performance of the system is very reliable and is suitable for nuclear physics experiments.     

High resolution solar soft X-ray spectrometer

A high resolution solar soft X-ray spectrometer (SOX) payload onboard a satellite is developed. A silicon drift detector (SDD) is adopted as the detector of the SOX spectrometer. The spectrometer consists of the detectors and their readout electronics, a data acquisition unit and a payload data handling unit. A ground test system is also developed to test SOX. The test results show that the design goals of the spectrometer system have been achieved.     

System design for precise digitization and readout of the CSNS-WNS BaF_2 spectrometer

The BaF_2 (barium fluoride) spectrometer is one of the experiment facilities at the CSNS-WNS(White Neutron Source at China Spallation Neutron Source), currently under construction. It is designed to precisely measure the(n, γ) cross section, with 92 crystal elements and complete 4π steradian coverage. In order to improve the precision of measurement, in this paper, a new precise digitization and readout method is proposed. Waveform digitizing with 1 GSps sampling rate and 12-bit resolution is used to precisely capture the detector signal. To solve the problem of massive data readout and processing, the readout electronics is designed as a distributed architecture with 4 PXIe crates. The digitized signal is concentrated to the PXIe crate controller through a PCIe bus on the backplane and transmitted to the data acquisition system over gigabit Ethernet in parallel. Besides, the clock and trigger can be fanned out synchronously to every electronic channel over a high-precision distribution network. Test results show that the prototype of the readout electronics can achieve good performance and meet the requirements of the CSNS-WNS BaF_2 spectrometer.     

Design and implementation of the detector control system for the BESⅢ drift chamber cosmic ray test

After the construction of the BESⅢ drift chamber, a long period of cosmic rays test is necessary to verify its performance. This also provides a good opportunity to integrate the detector readout electronics and Detector Control System (DCS) into a unified working system. The goal of the DCS is to guarantee reliable physics data quality and the safe operation of the detector. It monitors and controls the HV, gas, VME crates and the nvironmental variables. The upper-level system is mainly developed from LabVIEW and the lower-level system mainly uses MCU and PLC technology. The system is designed to be highly flexible and scalable so that it can be applied to other detectors with little or no change. In the immediate future, it will be integrated into the entire BESⅢ Slow Control System.     

Conditioning of BPM pickup signals for operations of the Duke storage ring with a wide range of single-bunch current

The Duke storage ring is a dedicated driver for the storage ring based oscillator free-electron lasers(FELs), and the High Intensity Gamma-ray Source(HIGS). It is operated with a beam current ranging from about1 mA to 100 mA per bunch for various operations and accelerator physics studies. High performance operations of the FEL and γ-ray source require a stable electron beam orbit, which has been realized by the global orbit feedback system. As a critical part of the orbit feedback system, the electron beam position monitors(BPMs) are required to be able to precisely measure the electron beam orbit in a wide range of the single-bunch current. However, the high peak voltage of the BPM pickups associated with high single-bunch current degrades the performance of the BPM electronics, and can potentially damage the BPM electronics. A signal conditioning method using low pass filters is developed to reduce the peak voltage to protect the BPM electronics, and to make the BPMs capable of working with a wide range of single-bunch current. Simulations and electron beam based tests are performed. The results show that the Duke storage ring BPM system is capable of providing precise orbit measurements to ensure highly stable FEL and HIGS operations.     

Study of a position-sensitive scintillator neutron detector

The investigation of a novel thermal neutron detector is developed to fulfill the requirements of the high intensity power diffractometer (HIPD) at the Chinese Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS). It consists of two layers of ⁶LiF/ZnS(Ag) scintillators, two layers of crossed WLSF arrays, several multi-anode photo multiplier tubes (MA-PMT), and the matching readout electronics. The neutron detection efficiency of the scintilltors, the light transportation ability of the WLSF, and the spatial linearity of the readout electronics are measured and discussed in this paper. It shows that the sandwich structure and the compact readout electronics could fulfill the needs of the HIPD. A prototype with a 10 cm×10 cm sensitive area has been constructed to further study the characteristics of the neutron scintillator detector.     

Instantaneous electron beam emittance measurement system based on the optical transition radiation principle

One kind of instantaneous electron beam emittance measurement system based on the optical transition radiation principle and double imaging optical method has been set up. It is mainly adopted in the test for the intense electron-beam produced by a linear induction accelerator. The system features two characteristics. The first one concerns the system synchronization signal triggered by the following edge of the main output waveform from a Blumlein switch. The synchronous precision of about 1 ns between the electron beam and the image capture time can be reached in this way so that the electron beam emittance at the desired time point can be obtained. The other advantage of the system is the ability to obtain the beam spot and beam divergence in one measurement so that the calculated result is the true beam emittance at that time, which can explain the electron beam condition. It provides to be a powerful beam diagnostic method for a 2.5 kA, 18.5 MeV, 90 ns (FWHM) electron beam pulse produced by Dragon I. The ability of the instantaneous measurement is about 3 ns and it can measure the beam emittance at any time point during one beam pulse. A series of beam emittances have been obtained for Dragon I. The typical beam spot is 9.0 mm (FWHM) in diameter and the corresponding beam divergence is about 10.5 mrad.     

Monte Carlo tuning for the BESⅢ time-of-flight system

Using experimental data, Monte Carlo tuning is implemented for performance parameters associated with the scintillation counters and readout electronics of the BESⅢ time-of-flight(TOF) system, as part of the full simulation model. The implementation of the tuning is described for simulations designed to reproduce the performance of a number of TOF system parameters, including pulse height, hit efficiency, time resolution, dead channels and background. In addition, comparisons with experimental data are presented.     

Conditioning of BPM pickup signals for operations of the Duke storage ring with a wide range of single-bunch current

The Duke storage ring is a dedicated driver for the storage ring based oscillator free-electron lasers（FELs）, and the High Intensity Gamma-ray Source（HIGS）. It is operated with a beam current ranging from about1 mA to 100 mA per bunch for various operations and accelerator physics studies. High performance operations of the FEL and γ-ray source require a stable electron beam orbit, which has been realized by the global orbit feedback system. As a critical part of the orbit feedback system, the electron beam position monitors（BPMs） are required to be able to precisely measure the electron beam orbit in a wide range of the single-bunch current. However, the high peak voltage of the BPM pickups associated with high single-bunch current degrades the performance of the BPM electronics, and can potentially damage the BPM electronics. A signal conditioning method using low pass filters is developed to reduce the peak voltage to protect the BPM electronics, and to make the BPMs capable of working with a wide range of single-bunch current. Simulations and electron beam based tests are performed. The results show that the Duke storage ring BPM system is capable of providing precise orbit measurements to ensure highly stable FEL and HIGS operations.     

HIRFL-CSR commissioning in 2006 and 2007

HIRFL-CSR, a new heavy ion cooler-storage-ring system at IMP, had been in commissioning since the beginning of 2006. In the two years of 2006 and 2007 the CSR commissioning was finished, including the stripping injection (STI), electron-cooling with hollow electron beam, C-beam stacking with the combination of STI and e-cooling, the wide energy-range synchrotron ramping from 7 MeV/u to 1000 MeV/u by changing the RF harmonic-number at mid-energy, the multiple multi-turn injection (MMI), the beam accumulation with MMI and e-cooling for heavy-ion beams of Ar, Kr and Xe, the fast extraction from CSRm and single-turn injection to CSRe, beam stacking in CSRe and the RIBs mass-spectrometer test with the isochronous mode in CSRe by using the time-of-flight method.     

HIRFL-CSR commissioning in 2006 and 2007

HIRFL-CSR, a new heavy ion cooler-storage-ring system at IMP, had been in commissioning since the beginning of 2006. In the two years of 2006 and 2007 the CSR commissioning was finished, including the stripping injection (STI), electron-cooling with hollow electron beam, C-beam stacking with the combination of STI and e-cooling, the wide energy-range synchrotron ramping from 7 MeV/u to 1000 MeV/u by changing the RF harmonic-number at mid-energy, the multiple multi-turn injection (MMI), the beam accumulation with MMI and e-cooling for heavy-ion beams of Ar, Kr and Xe, the fast extraction from CSRm and single-turn injection to CSRe, beam stacking in CSRe and the RIBs mass-spectrometer test with the isochronous mode in CSRe by using the time-of-flight method.     

The beam-based calibration of an X-ray pinhole camera at SSRF

A pinhole camera for imaging X-ray synchrotron radiation from a dipole magnet is now in operation at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) storage ring. The electron beam size is derived by unfolding the radiation image and the point spread function (PSF) with deconvolution techniques. The performance of the pinhole is determined by the accuracy of the PSF measurement. This article will focus on a beam-based calibration scheme to measure the PSF system by varying the beam images with different quadrupole settings and fitting them with the corresponding theoretical beam sizes. Applying this method at SSRF, the PSF value of the pinhole is revised from 37 to 44 μm. The deviation in beam size between the theoretical value and the measured value is minimized to 4% after calibration. This optimization allows us to observe the horizontal disturbance due to injection down to as small as 0.5 μm.     

Instantaneous electron beam emittance measurement system based on the optical transition radiation principle

One kind of instantaneous electron beam emittance measurement system based on the optical transition radiation principle and double imaging optical method has been set up. It is mainly adopted in the test for the intense electron-beam produced by a linear induction accelerator. The system features two characteristics. The first one concerns the system synchronization signal triggered by the following edge of the main output waveform from a Blumlein switch. The synchronous precision of about 1 ns between the electron beam and the image capture time can be reached in this way so that the electron beam emittance at the desired time point can be obtained. The other advantage of the system is the ability to obtain the beam spot and beam divergence in one measurement so that the calculated result is the true beam emittance at that time, which can explain the electron beam condition. It provides to be a powerful beam diagnostic method for a 2.5 kA, 18.5 MeV, 90 ns （FWHM） electron beam pulse produced by Dragon I. The ability of the instantaneous measurement is about 3 ns and it can measure the beam emittance at any time point during one beam pulse. A series of beam emittances have been obtained for Dragon I. The typical beam spot is 9.0 mm （FWHM） in diameter and the corresponding beam divergence is about 10.5 mrad.     

Electromagnetic modeling of the CSNS Hion source extraction system

A Penning surface H^- ion source test stand has been developed for the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP). H^- beams with a current up to 50 mA and a pulse length up to 520μs at a repetition rate of 25 Hz are obtained at present. In order to improve the extraction system based on both the results of the emittance measurements in experiment and the simulation results of the effect of the extraction system on the beam emittance, three dimensional electromagnetic finite element analysis and particle tracking are undertaken. First, the magnetic field of the deflecting magnet is studied in detail, and then the effect of the extraction geometry on the beam transport is also investigated.     

β-delayed Multi-particle Emission From 31Ar

The β+ decay of 31Ar was investigated in an experiment at the GSI-FRS spectrometer.The ions of interest have been produced in the fragmentation of a 36Ar beam at 880 MeV/nucleon and implanted in a time projection chamber with optical readout. In addition to β -delayed one and two proton emission, for the first time the emission of -delayed 3 protons has been observed. The branching ratio for this decay mode is found to be (0.07 ± 0.02)%.     

Design of proton beam optics to realize beam distribution transformation in C-ADS HTBT

The linac to the transmuter beam transport line (LTBT) connecting the end of the linac to the spallation target is a critical sub-system in the accelerator driven system (ADS). It has the function of transporting the accel-erated high power proton beam to the target with a beam footprint satisfying the special requirements of the minor actinide (MA) transmuter. In this paper, a preliminary conceptual design of the hurling magnet to transmuter beam transport section (HTBT), as a part of the LTBT, for the China ADS (C-ADS) system is proposed and developed. In this design, a novel hurling magnet with a two dimensional amplitude modulation (AM) of 1 kHz and scanning of more than 10 kHz at 360 in transverse directions is used to realize a 300 mm diameter uniform distribution of beam on target. The preliminary beam optics design of C-ADS HTBT optimized to minimize the beam loss on the vacuum chamber and the radiation damage caused by back-scattering neutrons will be reported.     

Design and development of compact readout electronics with silicon photomultiplier array for a compact imaging detector

This work aims at developing compact readout electronics for a compact imaging detector module with silicon photomultiplier (SPM) array. The detector module consists of a LYSO crystal array coupling with a SensL's 4×4 SPM array. A compact multiplexed readout based on a discretized positioning circuit (DPC) was developed to reduce the readout channels from 16 to 4 outputs. Different LYSO crystal arrays of 4×4, 8×8 and 12×12 with pixel sizes of 3.2, 1.6 and 1.0 mm respectively, have been tested with the compact readout board using a ¹³⁷Cs source. The initial results show that the compact imaging detector module with the compact multiplexed readout could clearly resolve 1 mm× 1 mm× 10 mm LYSO scintillation crystal array except those at the edges. The detector's intrinsic spatial resolution up to 1 mm can be achieved with the 3 mm×3 mm size SPMArray4 through light sharing and compact multiplexed readout. Our results indicate that this detector module is feasible for the development of high-resolution compact PET.     

Investigation of a method to calculate spontaneous radiation spectra from relativistic electrons in undulators

Undulators are key devices to produce brilliant synchrotron radiation at the synchrotron radiation facilities. In this paper we present a numerical computing method, including the computing program that has been developed to calculate the spontaneous radiation emitted from relativistic electrons in undulators by simulating the electrons＇ trajectory. The effects of electron beam emittance and energy spread have also been taken into account. Comparing with other computing methods available at present, this method has a few advantages with respect to several aspects. It can adopt any measured or arbitrarily simulated 3D magnetic field and arbitrary electron beam pattern for the calculation and it＇s able to analyze undulators of any type of magnetic structure. It＇s expected to predict precisely the practical radiation spectrum. The calculation results of a short period in-vacuum undulator and an Elliptically Polarized Undulator （EPU） at Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility （SSRF） are presented as examples.     

A New Technique for Diagnosing Multi-charged Ion Beams Produced by ECR Ion Source

In order to study the transmission properties of multi-charged ion beams between the ECR ion source and the analyzing magnet, a new diagnostic system composed of three Wien-filters with three single-wires has been built and installed on the IMP ECR source test bcnch. The single-wire is used to measure the beam profile and the beam density distribution, and the Wien-filter is used to measure the charge state distribution of ion beam.     

Observation of optical transition radiation from electron beams generated by laser plasma accelerator

Laser plasma accelerators (LPAs) have made great progress, achieving electron beam with energy up to 1 GeV from a centimeter scale capillary plasma waveguide. Here, we report the measurement of optical transition radiation (OTR) from the capillary-based LPA electron beams. Transition radiation images, produced by electrons passing through two separate foils (located at 2.3 m and 3.8 m away from the exit of the LPA) were recorded with a high resolution imaging system, respectively. Two magnetic quadrupole lenses were placed right after the capillary to focus and collimate the electron beams. Significant localized spikes appeared in the OTR images when the electron beam was focused by the magnetic quadrupole lenses, indicating the coherence of the radiation and the existence of ultrashort longitudinal structures inside the electron beam.