Development of a Time-of-Flight Electronics System for Neutron Beam Profiling at CSNS-WNS

• Published in: IEEE transactions on nuclear science 2019-08, Vol.66 (8), p.2005-2010
• Main Authors: Chen, Haolei, Feng, Changqing, Hu, Jiadong, Luo, Laifu, Wang, Li, Tan, Zhixin, Liu, Shubin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analog processing circuits; Bus interconnections; Cards; Chassis; Converters; Electronics; Field programmable gate arrays; field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs); Instrumentation; Lithium; Neutron beams; Neutrons; Photomultiplier tubes; Scintillation counters; Sensors; Spallation; Time measurement
• ISSN: 0018-9499; 1558-1578
• DOI: 10.1109/TNS.2019.2924640

A 256-channel time-of-flight electronics system has been developed for a facility called "Back-n white neutron source (WNS)" in China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS). This paper presents the structure and performance of the electronics system and test results at CSNS-WNS. A piece of lithium glass scintillator, coupled with a 256-channel multi-anode photomultiplier tube, is placed at the center of the neutron beam line as the detector. A 256-channel readout electronics system, including one front-end board (FEB), four time-to-digital converter (TDC) cards and one clock distribution module (CDM), measures the arrival time of each signal from the detector. Signals are sent to FEB from the detector through 15-cm cables and discriminated on FEB. FEB drives differential signals over 2-m cables to the TDC cards. Each TDC card has 64 channels, using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) to measure the arrival time of each signal. The CDM supplies clock signals to the TDC cards to make them work synchronously. The TDC cards and CDM are housed in one peripheral component interconnect (PCI) eXtensions for Instrumentation chassis. The TDC cards achieve a timing precision of 3.5 ns. The electronics system meets the requirement of the experiment and is currently being used in CSNS.