A Fast Analogue Front End for a Diamond Radiation Spectrometer

There is a need for radiation spectrometers that are able to work in sustained high-count-rate environments. This work presents the results obtained with a discrete component charge-sensitive amplifier and shaper combination designed to be the front end for a diamond spectrometer. A system with a rise time of 2.12ns, FWHM of 3.75ns and an ENC of 293e
^-
RMS was developed and a high gain of 147 mV/fC was achieved with return to baseline within 20 ns. Instantaneous count rates of 50MHz and sustained count-rates of 20MHz were made possible through the use of a fast preamplifier and differentiating shaper.