Pulse Shaping by Triple Differentiation in Nuclear Pulse Amplifiers

Pulse shaping by triple differentiation is described as a technique for reducing the recovery time following heavily overloading signals in nuclear pulse amplifiers. Tests performed on a low-noise pulse amplifier containing triple RC differentiation show recovery to the amplifier noise level in two nonoverloaded pulse widths following a 4,000X pulse amplitude overload. Experimental data is presented to show that the noise level when compared with single RC operation is worse by 1.6X to 3X, depending on the number of low-pass filter sections used in the shaping networks and the type of noise being observed.