Analog front-end for FPGA-based readout electronics for scintillation detectors

A new pulse-processing electronics architecture for photomultipliers coupled to fast scintillators used in nuclear physics experiments is described. The system comprises a field programmable gate array (FPGA) based time-to-digital converter (TDC), as well as custom analog electronics for amplification and efficient analog signal processing. These electronics include separate fast and slow discrete amplifiers to extract the timing and energy information of the incident radiation on cerium doped lanthanum bromide scintillators. With the slow amplifier, a novel circuit that is able to convert energy information directly into pulse width with a linear dependence is introduced. Advanced and highly demanded features such as low-processing time, high data rate handling capabilities and long collection windows have been tested with radioactive ion-beams. These characteristics of pulse-processing modules will further push the boundaries of experimental freedom.