IAEA-TECDOC-1706, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, VIENNA, 2013 p.138
Proceedings of the IAEA Technical Meeting Held in Vienna, Austria, 11–15 October 2010The electronics attached to radiation detectors capture and process the electrical signals generated by the radiation detectors and produce, as a final output, a digital signature containing information about the radiation that activated the radiation detector. The design objective of the electronic circuitry is to obtain maximum information about the radiation detected, and information of the best possible quality, reliability and throughput.
Digital electronics and digital pulse processing methods have shown radiation spectrometry systems
to be capable of accepting higher throughputs when compared with analog electronics. This opens
up new opportunities in high resolution spectrometry at high count rates, an area of great interest to researchers using high intensity neutron beam and X ray beam facilities. Digital pulse processing
technology has been proven to maintain system performance almost constant, independent of
throughput, and with greater stability and resistance against temperature variations and noise sources.
As a result, the quality, quantity and reliability of data delivered are increased and advances and
new applications in handheld field instruments, and in remote and unattended nuclear spectrometry
systems, are also enabled.
The objective of this technical meeting is to provide a forum for researchers and various industrial
partners involved in the development of nuclear spectrometry to share best practices and practical
experiences in the design, use and implementation of digital pulse processing in nuclear spectrometry.
The meeting reviewed the state of the art and current trends in the field of digital pulse processing,
the advantages and limitations, end user demands and future prospects. This publication summarizes
the findings and conclusions arising from this technical meeting.
