Portable multi-channel analyzer for embedded gamma radiation in an ARM Cortex-M7 MCU

The use of digital systems in radiation science has been increased last years in the different knowledge areas, as a detectors, spectrometry, spectroscopy, simulation, etc. This manuscript presents the design and implementation of a low-cost, fully portable multi-channel analyzer for nuclear spectrometry (in situ). The development is based on a 32-bit microcontroller with ARM Cortex-M7, this design is able to digitize and analyze pulses from a radiation detector without the need to transform the input signal with some filter, obtains the maximum height of each of the digitized pulses, segmenting the information into channels to form a histogram and visualizing the LCD screen incorporated in the system. A continuous digitization methodology was used, which is in charge of the DMA and an ADC with a resolution of 12 bits at a speed of 3.6 MSPS. The system has a compact design and can open and save spectra in an SD memory built into the system. The MCA in MCU was tested with a NaI(Tl) Scintillation radiation detector, which allowed us to determine that the spectra obtained are similar compared to commercial MCA's. The results obtained show that the MCA in MCU is efficient for nuclear spectrometry, in addition to being very economical and low power consumption.