CONSTANT SLOPE TIMING FOR NUCLEAR SEMICONDUCTOR-DETECTORS

A new timing method for Ge(Li) detectors has been developed. The pulses from the charge sensitive preamplifier are limited to a constant height. Then they are used to charge linearly a capacitor with a slope smaller than the smallest initial slope of the limited pulses. An amplitude discriminator provides the leading edge output pulses. The limited constant slope pulses are bipolar-shaped. A zero crossing discriminator selects the time information. The time resolution at the zero crossing output is comparable with the results obtained with the constant fraction zero crossing method, but the constant slope method seems to be simpler and more versatile. © 1979.