Comparative tests between commercial and in-house transimpedance preamplifiers for multiwire detectors at synchrotron facilities

Abstract

New gas filled detectors able to accept events at higher rates than 10^6 photons/s are under study within a collaboration agreement between European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), France, and Laboratorio de Luz Sincrotron (LLS), Spain. The aim of these agreement is to build new detectors able to perform on-time resolved X-ray experiments in the sub-millisecond time scale whilst at the same time have single photon counting capabilities and adequate spatial resolution (less than 300 micrometers). These detectors will require preamplifiers with low noise, good signal/noise ratio (better than 20 dB), high gain (better than 0.3 mV per electron), short rise time (lower than 10 ns) and pulse duration shorter than 120 ns. We present the design and the results of the evaluation of a fast, low noise charge preamplifiers developed at LLS, Barcelona, Spain. On the other hand, we also present the analogous preamplifier developed at ESRF and we compare both to commercial preamplifiers. The advantages and disadvantages of commercial and in-house preamplifiers are analyzed. The application of these preamplifiers on a multiwire detector is discussed and results are presented.