A gain-programmable transit-time-stable and temperature-stable PMT voltage divider

Yaqiang Liu, Hongdi Li, Yu Wang, Tao Xing, Shuping Xie, Jorge Uribe, Hossain Baghaei, Rocio Ramirez, Soonseok Kim, Wai Hoi Wong

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

A gain-programmable, transit-time-stable, temperature-stable photomultiplier (PMT) voltage divider design is described in this paper. The signal-to-noise ratio can be increased by changing a PMT gain directly instead of adjusting the gain of the preamplifier. PMT gain can be changed only by adjusting the voltages for the dynodes instead of changing the total high voltage between the anode and the photocathode, which can cause a significant signal transit-time variation that cannot be accepted by an application with a critical timing requirement, such as positron emission tomography (PET) or time-of-flight (TOF) detection/PET. The dynode voltage can be controlled by a digital analog converter isolated with a linear optocoupler. The optocoupler consists of an infrared light emission diode (LED) optically coupled with two phototransistors, and one is used in a servo feedback circuit to control the LED drive current for compensating temperature characteristics. The results showed that a six times gain range could be achieved; the gain drift was <0.5% over a 20<C temperature range; 250 ps transit-time variation was measured over the entire gain range. A compact print circuit board (PCB) for the voltage divider integrated with a fixed-gain preamplifier has been designed and constructed. It can save about $30 per PMT channel compared with a commercial PMT voltage divider along with a variable gain amplifier. The preamplifier can be totally disabled, therefore in a system with a large amount of PMTs. only one channel can be enabled for calibrating the PMT gain. This new PMT voltage divider design is being applied to our animal PET camera and TOF/PET research.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2558-2562
Number of pages5
JournalIEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
Volume51
Issue number5 II
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2004

Keywords

  • PET
  • PMT
  • Voltage divider

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
  • Nuclear Energy and Engineering
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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