Constructing an Analog Digital Converter (ADC) to Measure Neutron Depolarization in Deuterium Aung Kyaw Sint and Dr. Alexander Komives CsI scintillator with Amplifier and Multichannel Analyzer (MCA) Initial incentive of building ADC circuit: In order to determine the  weak meson coupling constant, neutrons will need to maintain a significant amount of their polarization when captured by the deuterium. Neutron capture in deuterium is not very efficient and the neutrons will bounce" around considerably before merging with a deuterium nucleus. Each "bounce" provides a significant opportunity for neutron depolarization. If too many neutrons are depolarized, the experiment won't be practical to perform. In order to measure the polarization, we need to construct a device that enables us to determine the polarization of gammas which in turn will lead us to determine the polarization of neutrons. Part of the data acquisition system includes the ADC. Theory behind it: By targeting a polarized neutron to deuterium, it produces a tritium nucleus, an isotope of hydrogen with 2 neutrons and one proton, and high energy gamma of 6.2 MeV. The photons from the above reaction are detected by a scintillator, which comes from the word scintillate meaning emit quick flashes. We use CsI (Cesium Iodide crystal) scintillator in our project. When high energy photons reach the CsI crystal, lower energy photons come out of the crystal in the form of small flashes of light. The more flashes of light means the larger the energy of the gamma. Attached to the scintillator is a photomultiplier tube (PMT) which captures the flashes of light coming from the CsI and sends them to the multichannel analyzer, MCA. The MCA graphs the input from the PMT as a histogram. A complete summary is shown in the diagram on right. Cascaded Counter: The counter I am building is a 4-bit cascaded binary counter. I built two of those since we want to count up to 256 (2^8). I connected the output of the counter with LEDs (light emitting diodes) to see the counting digitally. The schematic diagram on the left explains the basic function of the chip and its connection. Pins 7, 6, 2, and 3 of both chips are connected with LEDs to display the digital counting. Pin 5 of the first counter is input and pins 16 and 4 of both chips are connected to +5 V. Likewise, pins 8 and 14 of both chips are connected to ground. Pin 12 from the first chip is cascaded to pin 5 of the second chip. And the rest of the pins are connected to ground. 4-bit Cascaded Counter schematic form The pulse of high energy gamma seen in oscilloscope One of the main functions of the ADC circuit is pulse height analysis, also known as PHA. This is why we choose the Wilkinson ADC circuit to build for this project. The basic idea of PHA is that pulses with a range of amplitudes are input to a peak detector of ADC circuit that converts the relative pulse height to a number. These numbers are then histogrammed. The height of the amplitude is proportional to the energy of the gamma, The ADC digitizes the input pulse converting it into a number. Since it has a linear relationship, the higher the energy, the higher the peak, and the higher the number produced by the ADC. Pulse Height Analysis (PHA): The ADC circuit on the breadboard with LEDs Wilkinson Analog Digital Converter: The complete name of the ADC is a Wilkinson ADC, or a single slope integration ADC. We chose to build this particular type of ADC as opposed to a successive or dual slope ADC, because single slope ADC’s main function is pulse height analysis (PHA). The functionality of a Wilkinson ADC can be simply explained by three major processes: sample-and-hold, digitizing, and producing counts of the channel. Each process is carried out by corresponding circuit chips. Sampling-and-holding is performed by switch and peak detector, digitizing is done by comparator, clock and counter. The switch controls the incoming pulses from the PMT allowing time for the rest of the circuit to digitize the pulse. What we did not achieve in building this summer is the one-shot timer which is supposed to trigger the timing of open/close of the switch. From our Wilkinson ADC figure, we need two one-shot timers namely G1 and G2 referring to gate 1 and gate 2. We tried to build the following behavior of circuit: incoming pulse will trigger the G1, then G1 will close the switch allowing the pulse to go through the rest of the circuit. G1’s allowance time for the pulse to pass is very short, 100 microseconds (10-6 s). After 100 microseconds, G2 will open the switch blocking the other incoming pulses. G2 will control the switch long enough that the digitizing process can take place for the first pulse. We intend to set G2’s holding time for a few milliseconds (10-3 s). After that, G1 will wait for another pulse to pass through the switch. The AND gate is a logic gate with two inputs and one output. The main thing that the AND gate does is allow the counter to count the clock signals. One of the two inputs of AND gate is a clock which produces a square wave with equal width between +5V (high) and ground (low). The discharging voltage from the capacitor (C1 in figure on the left), which is charged by the PMT pulse, is fed to one of the inputs of the AND gate with the other input being a clock. Since the clock is high and low alternately over equal amounts of time, the counter will count the clock pulses while the capacitor is discharging. Wilkinson Analog Digital Converter (ADC) circuit schematic diagram Schematic form of the comparator A comparator is basically a dual op-amp. This is the key part of transforming from input analog signals to output digital signals. Comparator has one reference ground input (pin 3 in the schematic form). As long as the other input (pin 2) is higher than ground, there will be output. When the other input equals ground, the comparator shown in the following diagram stops producing output. Pin 3 is grounded together with pins 4 and 1. If input pin 2 is higher than pin 3, there will be output in pin 7. Otherwise, there will not be any output. Output from comparator will be one of the inputs of AND gate. The other input is from the clock. As long as comparator produces a signal, the counter will count the clock pulses. Thus, the comparator digitizes the analog signal. Comparator (Digitizing the Analog signals) Peak Detector of Sample-and-hold process: The main part of the sample-and-hold process is called peak detector. A combination of peak detector and switch is called sample-and-hold. Peak detector is basically a dual op-amp and its job is to store (or hold) the highest peak from input pulses in a capacitor and discharge it at a constant rate using the constant current source. The graph below shows us the peak detector performs linearly when discharging the input voltage. Acknowledgments: DePauw University, Faculty Development Committee, Physics and Astronomy Department, Dr. Komives Help: Dr. Brooks and Andy Smith Equipment: DePauw University Physics and Astronomy Department Reference: Forrest Mims, III, Engineer’s handbook: A Handbook of Integrated Circuit Application, 1 st Edition, Radio Shack, Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill, The Art of Electronics, 2 nd edition, Cambridge University Press, Manufacturer’s data sheets for each IC chips Current source: Another supporting circuit element in the ADC circuit is the current source. The current source helps the capacitor’s discharging voltage to be constant over time. In order to see the important role of the current source in the ADC circuit, I collected the data and plot the above graph with current source and without current source of the capacitor’s discharging time. As expected, with the current source, we obtained the plots of linear data whereas the other plot without current source is non-linear data.