Counting photons at low temperature with a streaming time-to-digital converter

C. J. G. Onderwater

doi:10.1016/j.nima.2012.10.065

Counting photons at low temperature with a streaming time-to-digital converter

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

We present some aspects of photon counting to study scintillators at low temperatures. A time-to-digital converter (TDC) had been configured to acquire several-minute-long streams of data, simplifying the multiple photon counting coincidence technique. Results in terms of light yield and time structure of a ZnWO4 scintillator are comparable to those obtained with a fast digitizer. Streaming data also provides flexibility in analyzing the data, in terms of coincidence window between the channels, and acquisition window of individual channels. We discuss the effect of changing these parameters, and use them to confirm low-energy features in the spectra of the number of detected photons, such as the 60 keV line from Am-241 in the ZnWO4 sample. We lastly use the TDC to study the transmission of the optical cryostat employed in these studies at various temperatures. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	40-52
Number of pages	13
Journal	Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research Section A-Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and Associated Equipment
Volume	700
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2012.10.065
Publication status	Published - 1 Feb 2013
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Rare event search
Scintillation
Low temperature
Photon counting
Decay time
Light yield
ZNWO4 SCINTILLATORS

Access to Document

10.1016/j.nima.2012.10.065

Cite this

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title = "Counting photons at low temperature with a streaming time-to-digital converter",

abstract = "We present some aspects of photon counting to study scintillators at low temperatures. A time-to-digital converter (TDC) had been configured to acquire several-minute-long streams of data, simplifying the multiple photon counting coincidence technique. Results in terms of light yield and time structure of a ZnWO4 scintillator are comparable to those obtained with a fast digitizer. Streaming data also provides flexibility in analyzing the data, in terms of coincidence window between the channels, and acquisition window of individual channels. We discuss the effect of changing these parameters, and use them to confirm low-energy features in the spectra of the number of detected photons, such as the 60 keV line from Am-241 in the ZnWO4 sample. We lastly use the TDC to study the transmission of the optical cryostat employed in these studies at various temperatures. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.",

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AU - Onderwater, C. J. G.

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AB - We present some aspects of photon counting to study scintillators at low temperatures. A time-to-digital converter (TDC) had been configured to acquire several-minute-long streams of data, simplifying the multiple photon counting coincidence technique. Results in terms of light yield and time structure of a ZnWO4 scintillator are comparable to those obtained with a fast digitizer. Streaming data also provides flexibility in analyzing the data, in terms of coincidence window between the channels, and acquisition window of individual channels. We discuss the effect of changing these parameters, and use them to confirm low-energy features in the spectra of the number of detected photons, such as the 60 keV line from Am-241 in the ZnWO4 sample. We lastly use the TDC to study the transmission of the optical cryostat employed in these studies at various temperatures. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

KW - Rare event search

KW - Scintillation

KW - Low temperature

KW - Photon counting

KW - Decay time

KW - Light yield

KW - ZNWO4 SCINTILLATORS

U2 - 10.1016/j.nima.2012.10.065

DO - 10.1016/j.nima.2012.10.065

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JO - Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research Section A-Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and Associated Equipment

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