Date of Award
Spring 5-2022
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Degree Type
Thesis
Abstract
In nuclear science experiments it is usually necessary to determine the type of radiation, its energy and direction with considerable accuracy. The detection of neutrons and discriminating them from gamma rays is particularly difficult. A popular method of doing so is to measure characteristics intrinsic to the pulse shape of each radiation type in order to perform pulse-shape discrimination (PSD).
Historically, PSD capable systems have been designed with two approaches in mind: specialized analog circuitry, or digital signal processing (DSP). In this work we propose a PSD capable circuit topology using techniques from both the analog and DSP domains. We call this circuit topology a mixed-mode PSD system. We model this mixed-mode PSD system using Verilog-A and simulate its performance using Cadence Spectre with real detector waveform data as the input. We show that our mixed-mode PSD system is capable of discriminating between neutrons and gamma rays at least as well as state of the art DSP based systems while offering some of the advantages of both analog based and DSP based systems.
Language
English (en)
Chair
Roger Chamberlain
Committee Members
Roger Chamberlain Lee Sobotka Ron Cytron
Included in
Electronic Devices and Semiconductor Manufacturing Commons, Nuclear Commons, Radiochemistry Commons, Signal Processing Commons, VLSI and Circuits, Embedded and Hardware Systems Commons