Development of a method for fast radiation measurement as a solution to signal pile-up by measuring the rising slope of the signal waveform

Abstract Detection systems based on photon counting utilize a system that makes use of a dedicated application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for very fast radiation measurement. However, even with a high-speed system, the signal pile-up phenomenon still occurs. In this study, a general-purpose method that can measure radiation very fast, and can measure radiation lost due to pile-up was developed. This method determines the energy by analyzing the signal waveform, and by converting the rising slope of the signal into energy. Analysis of the slope, instead of measuring the entire waveform, enables the measurement time to be greatly reduced, and by measuring the rising slope, each individual radiation signal can be separated and measured even in signals where pile-up occurred. This method, which eliminates the need for a dedicated ASIC, can be applied to existing systems. In addition, this method is expected to enable a very efficient detection system to be developed because the loss of photon counting can be minimized in high radiation fields.