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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 72: Poster

HK 72.62: Poster

Thursday, March 14, 2024, 17:15–18:45, HBR 14: Foyer

Arduino Readout Electronics — •Markus Köhli¹, Jannis Weimar¹, Simon Schmidt¹, Fabian Schmidt², Jochen Kaminski², and Ulrich Schmidt¹ — ¹Physikalisches Institut, Heidelberg University, Germany — ²Physikalisches Institut, University of Bonn, Germany

Open Hardware-based microcontrollers, especially the Arduino platform, have become a comparably easy-to-use tool for rapid prototyping and implementing creative solutions. Such devices in combination with dedicated frontend electronics can offer low cost alternatives for student projects and independently operating small scale instrumentation. The capabilities can be extended to data taking and signal analysis at decent rates. We present two projects, covering the readout of proportional counter tubes and of scintillators or wavelength shifting fibers with Silicon Photomultipliers. With the SiPMTrigger we have realized a small-scale design for SiPMs as a trigger or veto detector. It consists of a custom mixed signal frontend board featuring signal amplification, discrimination and a coincidence unit for rates up to 200 kHz. The nCatcher board transforms an Arduino Nano to a proportional counter readout with pulse analysis - time over threshold measurement and a 10-bit analog-to-digital converter for pulse heights. The device is therefore suitable for low to medium rate environments, where a good signal to noise ratio is crucial - in case presented here to monitor thermal neutrons.

Keywords: Arduino; Proportional Counter; Scintillation Detector; Lab Instrumentation; Frontend Electronics