Wire Detector with Delay-line Readout

A wire detector with 1-D strip readout has been successfully constructed and tested in 2005. The strip cathodes were connected to commercially available, 10-tap sillicon delay lines with 50 Ohm impedance. Fast transimpedance preamplifiers (adopted from an ESRF design) at each end of the delay line chain provided gain to feed the pulses into subsequent NIM pulse processing modules for energy and position measurements. The two photos below shows the detector without the X-ray window in place. Gas, signal and HV connectors are located around the detector perimeter. The entire detector housing was made from machined brass stock.

The photo above shows a typical experimental setup. Amplifiers are connected via short 50 Ohm coaxial cables to the detector outputs (one at each end of the delay line chain). Detector voltage and current are monitored by panel meters in the background. A fast digital oscilloscope is used to view the output signals. The detector is filled with an Argon/CO2 gas mix (70/30 ratio) prior to ramping up the high voltage supply. The stainless steel cylinder on top of the detector contains the X-ray source. The detector is sensitive to X-ray energies in the range of 2-12keV. 

For further information contact Dale Phillips (dale.phillips@sync.monash.edu.au ) .