Compact multiwire proportional counters for the detection of fission fragments
- Inter University Accelerator Centre, P.O. Box 10502, New Delhi 110067 (India)
- Department of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh 160014 (India)
- Department of Physics and Astrophysics, Delhi University, Delhi 110007 (India)
Two large area multistep position sensitive (two dimensional) multiwire proportional counters have been developed for experiments involving study of fission dynamics using general purpose scattering chamber facility at IUAC. Both detectors have an active area of 20x10 cm{sup 2} and provide position signals in horizontal (X) and vertical (Y) planes, timing signal for time of flight measurements and energy signal giving the differential energy loss in the active volume. The design features are optimized for the detection of low energy heavy ions at very low gas pressures. Special care was taken in setting up the readout electronics, constant fraction discriminators for position signals in particular, to get optimum position and timing resolutions along with high count rate handling capability of low energy heavy ions. A custom made charge sensitive preamplifier, having lower gain and shorter decay time, has been developed for extracting the differential energy loss signal. The position and time resolutions of the detectors were determined to be 1.1 mm full width at half maximum (FWHM) and 1.7 ns FWHM, respectively. The detector could handle heavy ion count rates exceeding 20 kHz without any breakdown. Time of flight signal in combination with differential energy loss signal gives a clean separation of fission fragments from projectile and target like particles. The timing and position signals of the detectors are used for fission coincidence measurements and subsequent extraction of their mass, angular, and total kinetic energy distributions. This article describes systematic study of these fission counters in terms of efficiency, time resolution, count rate handling capability, position resolution, and the readout electronics. The detector has been operated with both five electrode geometry and four electrode geometry, and a comparison has been made in their performances.
- OSTI ID:
- 22051115
- Journal Information:
- Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 80, Issue 12; Other Information: (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0034-6748
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
CHARGED PARTICLE DETECTION
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COUNTING RATES
DESIGN
DISCRIMINATORS
ENERGY LOSSES
FISSION FRAGMENTS
GAIN
HEAVY IONS
KHZ RANGE
KINETIC ENERGY
POSITION SENSITIVE DETECTORS
PREAMPLIFIERS
PROPORTIONAL COUNTERS
READOUT SYSTEMS
TIME RESOLUTION
TIME-OF-FLIGHT METHOD