A Versatile Solid-State Time-to-Pulse-Height Converter

A time-to-pulse-height converter has been developed for use in delayed-coincidence as well as pulsed-beam experiments. It embodies advantages of both start-stop and overlap converters with a single-valued output, A constant current flows into a capacitor only when a fast bistable element is in the "on" condition. In the pulsed-beam mode of operation, the "start" pulse from the detector turns the bistable element on and the "stop" pulse derived from the rf chopping signal turns it off. In the delayed-coincidence mode, the "start" pulse turns the bistable element on only if a "ready" pulse from a second detector is present, and it is turned off by the termination of the "ready" pulse, whose duration is determined by the length of a coaxial line shorted at one end. A means of gating the timing pulses by a fast integral gate is provided to reduce the duty cycle.