Control and data acquisition system for collinear laser spectroscopy experiments

A control and data acquisition system was implemented for the recently developed collinear laser spectroscopy setup. This system is dedicated to data recording, storage, processing, monitoring of the beam intensity and energy, and visualization of various spectra. In comparison to the conventional resonance nuclear reaction system, the key technique is the precise synchronization of the detected counts with the actual scanning voltage (or probing laser frequency). The functions of the system were tested by measuring the hyperfine structure spectra of stable calcium (e.g.,40Ca+) and radioactive potassium (e.g., 38K) in the bunched and continuous modes, respectively. This system will be routinely applied and further improved in subsequent laser spectroscopy experiments on unstable isotopes at the Beijing Radioactive Ion-beam Facility (BRIF).