The acquisition and implementation of a 680-channel Digital Data Acquisition System (DDAS) for the Segmented Germanium Array (SeGA) at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory's (NSCL) allows the identification of positions of interactions for gamma-rays within SeGA detector crystals by pulse shape analysis of digitized signals. Spatial resolution in the detectors with the DDAS implemented will be at least by a factor of two better than that achievable with the current analog electronics.
The SeGA photon spectrometer is a $2M instrument commissioned in 2001, and is currently the world's largest operational highly-segmented high-purity germanium detector array for gamma-ray spectroscopy with fast exotic beams. SeGA is central to the research of five faculty members, their postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate students at Michigan State University and available to all users of the NSCL. Roughly half of all experiments approved by the NSCL's external Program Advisory Committee (PAC) require SeGA for gamma-ray detection. Participating students will be exposed to the novel and potent applications of the state-of-the-art digital technology and will have an opportunity to develop skills in signal processing, data analysis and computer programming.
With the proposed DDAS, the SeGA array will be the world's first digital photon spectrometer for fast exotic beam spectroscopy, ahead of several other efforts currently under consideration, preserving the current world-leading role of the NSCL's photon spectroscopy program.
