Instrumentation for high accuracy noise characterisation of front-end devices in detector applications

Abstract

The paper describes the instrumentation that was developed for the noise characterisation of field-effect and bipolar transistors. Very accurate measurements of the series noise spectral density in the frequency range 100 mHz — 100 MHz and of the equivalent noise charge at processing times ranging from 10 ns to 10 μs are made possible. A review of results on various device types shows how these data are used in view of applications to a broad range of experimental conditions in elementary particle and nuclear physics.