A gated linear chain

Abstract

The linear chain described here has been studied to process positive current pulses. The chain can be used as a fast linear gate, when timing and shape information of the pulses have to be preserved, allowing further processing at high repetition rates (up to 20 Mc/sec), or it can be used as a gated integrator with a short dead time. The gate, which is essentially a current transducer, exhibits a linear response with pulses whose amplitude is ranging from ≈0 to about 6 V, with a linearity better than 1%. The pedestal amplitude can be minimized to less than 0.5 mA without affecting the opening and closing times of the gate (≈6 ns for 90% transmission of total charge). The signal feed-through is less than 20 mV at an input signal of ≈ 14 V (rise time less than 1 ns).