The Study Of Gamma-ray Data Acquisition System Based On USB

It is important that study gamma-ray spectrometry of field rock and soil in the earth's crust. Its energies range between 30KeV and 3000KeV, where there is much information of natural radioactive nuclides, such as uranium, thorium, potassium, and information of artificial radioactive nuclides, such as cesium, americium, cobalt, and information of the results in interaction between gamma-ray and earth's crust. Studying of gamma-ray data acquisition system is one of important items, which is used to acquire and process gamma-ray spectrometry data.With the introduction of new pattern productions of electronic technology, such as new and low power integrated circuits, programmable application specific integrated circuits, microprocessor, etc, the function of nuclear spectrometry data acquisition system is stronger than before. Synchronously, with the development of computer technology, it is possible that nuclear data acquisition system becomes intelligent and smart.This paper is based on the study of hardware and software's architecture of normal gamma-ray data acquisition system, which is used widely at present. Furthermore, we focus on the design of gamma-ray data acquisition system with universal serial bus interface (USB), which has the characteristics of lower power, real time and good performance, etc.There are some advantages compared with existing gamma-ray data acquisition system:(1) USB is used for communication interface. The benefits of USB are taken advantage of. The transfer rate and reliability of data increase vastly, in addition, plug-and-play is realized.(2) PSD technology is used for Microcontroller's peripheral circuit, which has the function of In-System-Programmable (ISP). Moreover, other low power designs are realized. All these efforts have effectively reduced the power of the system.(3) Professional analog circuit emluator is used for analog circuit design, which makes lower cost and shorter time than before.(4) Advanced programme language c51 is used for microcontroller firmware design. The design, the maintenance and upgrade become easier.The simple test shows that this system is reliable and is very easy to use. Its all kinds of performances have achieved the goals as expected, which can satisfy the needs of gamma-ray spectrometry of field.