A Pulse-Height Analyzer for Charged-Particle Spectroscopy on the Lunar Surface

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Abstract
The design and performance of a charge‐sensitive amplifier and a 256‐channel pulse‐height analyzer for use in a lunar surface analysis experiment are presented. Input is from silicon detectors used to measure the energies of up to 7 MeV alpha particles and protons. Anticoincidence logic is provided for the proton detection system to reject cosmic rays. The instrument operates in the space environment over a temperature range of −50 to +50°C. Over this range the instrument gain was stable to ±0.4%, and the offset varied less than 0.1 channels. Resolution of 35 keV was obtained with a 228Th alpha‐particle source. Total power for the system, which includes 10 amplifiers, 2 analog‐to‐digital converters, 4 discriminators, and data processing logic is approximately 2 W. Particular attention was given to reliability in the design and construction of the system. Large amounts of negative feedback and carefully selected and screened components were utilized to achieve this goal.

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