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Detector electronics
The pages below contain information on the data acquisition and readout electronics used in Medusa radiation detection systems. Over the past 10 years, several different sets of electronics were used in our systems.
In very general terms, a detector system is made up of a scintillator crystal and a (classic or silicon) photomultiplier unit (PMT) coupled to a Multichannel analyser (MCA). The MCA is then coupled to a data logger that can be part of the sensor (newer systems) or be outside (older systems)
General lay-out of a Medusa radiation sensing system
Up to about 2014, our sensor systems were equipped with a vMCA board. This board is a 512 channel analog multichannel board that communicaties over RS232 to a data logging computer that is outside the sensor. These boards are typically found on our "square-box" systems like the MS-4000's up to serial number 010 and the MS-1200 up to serial 003.
The 4 generations of readout electronics - the vMCA, GBS base, mMCA v1 and mMCA v2
From 2014 on, we have started to use digital readout systems from GBS electronics. These were used in our MS-2000 systems numbered 001-007 and in the MS-4000's 011 and 012. After that we moved to our own home grown electronics (the mMCA V1 and V2).