Rutgers
University Department of Physics and
Astronomy
Electronic Shop
PERSONNEL
Stanley
Sherman ---- Head Electronics Engineer
Edward Bartz ---- Electronics Engineer
Yuriy Streltsov ---- Sr. Electronic Technician
SERVICES
The Electronics Shop group can design, develop, construct, and
test large quantities of various analog/digital instrumentation to
stringent specifications. Nanovolts to kilovolts and millihertz to a
gigahertz are the ranges covered. Over 300 pieces of quality
commercial electronic test equipment ( mostly Hewlett Packard and
Tektronix, some Wavetek, Keithley, and Fluke ) is available for loan
to internal research groups. Commercial electronic test equipment is
repaired inexpensively.
CAPABILITIES
- Low noise design
- PC Board design (surface mount or thru-hole) using microwave
techniques to yield low radiation and crosstalk
- Computerized PC Board layout using PCAD or PADS
- Comprehensive electronic CAD software is routinely used. ie.
Analog/Digital mixed mode circuit simulator (SPICE) , System
simulator, Data maniupulator/plotter, Symbolic and numerical math
packages.
- Mechanical package (card cage etc.) design and assembly
- Use of Contract Manufacturers for large quantity assembly
work. (Testing done internally)
- Novel circuit development
- Reliably triggering, age stable pulse width, 10 nsec
recovery time, low cost, ECL One Shot
- Low noise, wideband, high voltage short circuit proof
output, Piezzo driver composite op-amp amplifier
SAMPLE OF COMPLETED JOBS
One year's activities
A busy fiscal year output was 1200 PC boards of seven types
assembled and tested; a total of 8600 low noise wideband pulse
processing/detection channels. Eleven card cages ( 5 types ) and 17
Power Supply Boxes (+/- 5V @ 350-750 watts DC out/box) designed,
assembled, and tested. Power cables ( 50 amp capacity ) with
connectors designed and assembled. Two hundred high speed (2-3 nsec
risetime) photomultiplier tube bases were assembled and tested. PC
board circuits developed by Electronic Shop in previous year(s). Four
PC boards were laid out and three in the prior year. All electronics
meet FNAL safety specifications. Semi-automatic test equipment was
designed and developed with layout and construction of six ( two
types ) chamber simulating wideband pulse distribution PC boards.
Formal detailed test procedures were generated. Student labor was
used extensively. The electronics comprise three jobs as follows.
- Wire/Drift Chamber Electronics - Four chambers used on KTEV
experiment at FNAL
- Pre-amp Board ( 150 boards ): 16 channels/board, 90 MHz
bandwidth ( risetime 4 nsec )/ channel, 670 na rms effective
input noise, analog balanced outputs to drive 110 ohm twisted
pair cables
- Amplifier and Discriminator Board ( 150 boards ): 16
channels/board, balanced inputs, discriminator threshold
externally adjustable, discriminator outputs fed to ECL One
Shots and subsequently to balanced line drivers that send out
55nsec pulses.
- KTEV Regenerator Electronics - used on KTEV experiment at FNAL
- Pre-amp Board ( 40 boards ): 5 channels/board,
Photomultiplier tube low noise, wideband ( dc-150 MHz )
amplifier-limiter with complex dual pole-zero shaping, pulse
trailing edge long tail compensation, and coaxial cable
pre-compensation for 400 feet RG-58U.
- Amplifier Board (40 boards ): 5 channels/board, Wideband (
dc-200MHz ) amplifier. Boards with cable yielded pulses
recovering within 1/2 % of peak amplitude within 20 nsec up to
100X overload
- Straw Chamber Electronics - Five chambers used on a Hadron
Spectrometer Detector at CEBAF
- Termination Board ( 375 boards ): 16 channels/board,
Impedance terminates and couples dc high voltage to straw.
Recieves and distributes to straws, pulses used to test
electronics.
- Readout Board ( 375 boards ): 16 channels/board, Amplifies
and discriminates straw outputs, sending discriminator outputs
to One Shots. For cost and instrumentation reduction, channel
position information is encoded in One Shot pulse width (
suggested by Electronics Shop personnel ). Two independent
groups of eight One Shots', each of the eight One Shots with a
different closely controlled pulse width (+/- 1.5 nsec),
outputs are logically OR'ed. Individually, both OR'ed signals
are passed through individual balanced line drivers. The
drivers outputs are attenuated prior to coupling to twisted
pair cables to preclude excessive radiated feedback signals to
straws which could cause non-linear oscillations. Pulse
amplitude restoration board ( 50 boards ): Amplifies Readout
Board outputs and retransmits balanced ECL format.
Other jobs
Designed and developed wire and straw chamber and KTEV regenerator
electronics.
Modeled, developed, and/or built or manufactured analytical
laboratory instruments electronics as follows:
- Scanning Tunneling Microscope ( STM ) Electronics - Assembled
and wired two sets of electronics comprising seventeen PC boards.
Designed, assembled, and wired main chassis, card cage, and
electrometer pre-amp chassis. Redrew and clarified schematics.
Designed, wired, and assembled cabling for a low noise grounding
system. Modeled and simulated the STM non-linear feedback control
loop in an attempt to improve performance. In collaboration with a
graduate student a method for a noise cancellation technique was
conceived and a patent disclosure was generated.
- Photo Absorption Chemical Detection Subsystem - A
Photo-detector/electrometer with mounting assembly was designed,
constructed, and tested
- Atomic Force Microscope Electronics - A pre-amp and
differential amplifier was built and tested
- Auger/Esca Electron Energy Spectrum Analyzer Electronics -
Designed and developed electronics comprising two rack size boxes
containing power supplies and voltage dividers. Overall System
Block Diagrams were generated to facilitate interconnecting
complex grounding systems to achieve low noise.
- Modify a Perkin-Elmer ion gun controller to increase power
capability
- Layout a diamond medium, particle detector PC board
Designed and/or developed:
- Computer controlled data acquisition system including
software
- Multi-featured stand alone dual digital ramp generator
- Switchable wideband power buffer array consisting of 40
channels driving 5 volt 100 nsec risetime pulses into 50 ohm
loads
- 500V @ 1a and a 500V @ 2a power supplies
- ECL pulse step delay/channel identifier/data compressor: 7
boards constructed, 64 channels/board in, 8 pulse data pairs out,
balanced inputs and outputs
- High power pulse generator
- Intersite trigger using microwave link
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Revised November 6, 2000