Gas proportional scintillation counter pulse-signature analysis using digital techniques

The use of short shaping time-constants (50 ns) followed by digital samplin g of gas proportional scintillation counter pulses is investigated. Such sh ort shaping time causes each pulse to closely resemble the scintillation li ght burst, allowing for an effective pulse-signature analysis. Pulse amplit ude is obtained by numerical integration of the digital pulse samples. The shorter total pulse durations, lead to pulse-height distributions that are much less dependent on the total interaction rate occurring in the detector . Total interaction rates up to 12 ks(-1) can be tolerated without signific ant degradation of the obtained pulse-height distribution. It was also veri fied that the maximum throughput achieved by the digital pulse-height analy ser improves from 1 to 1.7 ks(-1) when using the short shaping time-constan ts. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.