Readout System Research Articles

On-Site Multisample Determination of Chlorogenic Acid in Green Coffee by Chemiluminiscent Imaging

The potential of antioxidants in preventing several diseases has attracted great attention in recent years. Indeed, these products are part of a multi-billion industry. However, there is a lack of scientific information about safety, quality, doses, and changes over time. In the present work, a simple multisample methodology based on chemiluminiscent imaging to determine chlorogenic acid (CHLA) in green coffee samples has been proposed. The multi-chemiluminiscent response was obtained after a luminol-persulfate reaction at pH 10.8 in a multiplate followed by image capture with a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera as a readout system. The chemiluminiscent image was used as an analytical response by measuring the luminescent intensity at 0 °C with the CCD camera. Under the optimal conditions, the detection limit was 20 µM and precision was also adequate with RSD < 12%. The accuracy of the proposed system was evaluated by studying the matrix effect, using a standard addition method. Recoveries of chlorogenic acid ranged from 93-94%. The use of the CCD camera demonstrated advantages such as analysis by image inspection, portability, and easy-handling which is of particular relevance in the application for quality control in industries. Furthermore, multisample analysis was allowed by one single image saving time, energy, and cost. The proposed methodology is a promising sustainable analytical tool for quality control to ensure green coffee safety through dosage control and proper labelling preventing potential frauds.

An automated testing system for the RD51 VMM hybrid and yield measurement of the first production batches

We present the development of an automated testing system for the VMM hybrid of the RD51 collaboration. The VMM hybrid is a new front-end board for the RD51 common readout system, the Scalable Readout System, and will become the workhorse for the next decade to read out Micro-Pattern Gaseous Detectors. It uses the VMM chip developed for the ATLAS New Small Wheel to convert charge signals from detectors to digital data. Our testing system automatically characterises the quality of the VMM chips on the hybrid after production during multiple tests. Results are evaluated to classify the chips and hybrids and uploaded to a database. We evaluated those results for the first two production batches to measure the production yield. The yield is better than the threshold below which chip testing on a wafer level offers financial benefits. Observations on prominent chip failures were propagated back to the hybrid production process to further increase the yield for future productions.

A Beam Monitor for Ion Beam Therapy Based on HV-CMOS Pixel Detectors

Particle therapy is a well established clinical treatment of tumors. More than one hundred particle therapy centers are in operation world-wide. The advantage of using hadrons like protons or carbon ions as particles for tumor irradiation is the distinct peak in the depth-dependent energy deposition, which can be exploited to accurately deposit doses in the tumor cells. To guarantee this, high accuracy in monitoring and control of the particle beam is of the utmost importance. Before the particle beam enters the patient, it traverses a monitoring system which has to give fast feedback to the beam control system on position and dose rate of the beam while minimally interacting with the beam. The multi-wire chambers mostly used as beam position monitors have their limitations when a fast response time is required (drift time). Future developments such as MRI-guided ion beam therapy pose additional challenges for the beam monitoring system, such as tolerance of magnetic fields and acoustic noise (vibrations). Solid-state detectors promise to overcome these limitations and the higher resolution they offer can create additional benefits. This article presents the evaluation of an HV-CMOS detector for beam monitoring, provides results from feasibility studies in a therapeutic beam, and summarizes the concepts towards the final large-scale assembly and readout system.

Precession measurement of perturbed angular correlation in double-photon emission nuclides with magnetic field for novel RI imaging method

Nuclear medical imaging techniques such as single-photon emission computed tomography and positron emission tomography, are important and sensitive diagnostic methods in the field of medicine. These techniques are used to measure and visualize the accumulation of radiolabeled molecules using gamma rays. In a previous study, we investigated a novel method, double-photon emission imaging, by utilizing cascade nuclides with cascade gamma rays. This method helps extract information regarding the local microenvironment, such as pH and chemical state, around a nucleus through the time–space correlation of emitted gamma rays (Shimazoe et al., 2022). In this study, we used a magnetic field as the external field for inducing Larmor precession by the magnetic field and characterized the effect in a liquid-state cascade radioisotope. We designed eight GAGG-MPPC 8 × 8 (512 channels in total) array detectors using an individual time-over-threshold readout system to form a ring and characterize the angular correlation of the direction of gamma-ray emission of an aqueous solution of 111In caused by the magnetic field. The impact of the existence and strength of the magnetic field (from 0 to 3T) on the angular correlation were measured and characterized. A method for estimating the location of the source was discussed using the fact that information on the strength of the magnetic field applied to the source can be calculated from the gamma radiation readings.

Malachite Green-Based Detection of SARS-CoV-2 by One-Step Reverse Transcription Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification

The pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV-2) revealed the necessity of diagnosis of the infected people to prevent the prevalence infection cycle. Many commercial pathogen diagnosis methods are based on the detection of genomic materials. Isothermal amplification methods such as loop-mediated-isothermal amplification (LAMP) are the method of choice in these cases. Reverse transcription steps are efficiently coupled to LAMP for the detection of pathogens with genomic RNAs such as SARS-CoV-2. Many detection systems for LAMP include fluorescent readout systems. Although such systems result in desirable limits of detection, the need for special instrumentation is the main dispute of such systems to become real point of care assays. In contrast, colorimetric detection methods would reduce costs and improve the applicability of the system. In this study one-step reverse transcription-LAMP reaction was established that enables visual detection of the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Nasopharyngeal RNA samples were first validated by reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction and then subjected to RT-LAMP. To lower the cost associated with the readout system equipment, malachite green (MG) was used. The color change of MG to blue allowed visual detection of the virus. Firstly, experiments were set up as two-step RT-LAMP reaction to identify the best primer sets. In addition, MG concentration was optimized with the significant colorimetric signal for the positive samples. Next, a one-step colorimetric method was developed for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 based on MG color shift in 2 h.

LAPPD operation using ToFPETv2 PETSYS ASIC

Single photon sensitive detectors used in high energy physics are, in some applications, required to cover areas the size of several m2, and more specifically in very strong demand with an ever finer imaging and timing capability for Cherenkov Ring Imaging Detector (RICH) configurations. We are evaluating the Large Area Picosecond Photo-detector (LAPPD) produced by INCOM company, as a possible candidate for future RICH detector upgrades. In this work we perform tests on the second generation device, which is capacitively coupled to a custom designed anode back plane, consisting of various pixels and strips varying in size, that allows for connecting various readout systems such as standard laboratory equipment, as well as the TOFPET2 ASIC from PETsys company. Our aim is to evaluate what can be achieved by merging currently available technology, in order to find directions for future developments adapted for specific uses.

ALICE Zero Degree Calorimeters. The new readout system in LHC Run 3

The Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDC) were designed to provide the measurement of the event geometry and luminosity in heavy-ion operation. The readout system was redesigned in order to operate in continuous mode without dead time at 2.5 MHz event rate. The new acquisition chain is based on a commercial 12 bit digitizer with a sampling rate of about 1 GSps, assembled on an FPGA Mezzanine Card. The signals produced by the 26 ZDC channels are digitized, and samples are processed through an FPGA to extract information such as timing, baseline average estimation and luminosity.

Studies and optimization of scintillation light measurements for the development of the 3-gamma medical imaging XEMIS2 liquid xenon Compton camera

We report the studies and optimization of scintillation light measurements in an updated version of the XEMIS1 prototype for the development of the XEMIS2 camera. A novel monolithic liquid xenon Compton camera, named XEMIS2 (XEnon Medical Imaging System), attempts to achieve low-activity small-animal imaging using the 3-gamma imaging technique. This emerging detector relies on the time projection chamber technique: it will be able to perform a simultaneous detection of the three γ -rays emitted by a specific radionuclide, such as scandium-44, and to produce a good quality image with a remarkable diminution of radiopharmaceutical activity at the same time. Vacuum Ultraviolet (VUV) scintillation light and ionization charge carriers generated from the recoiling particles within the detector are detected and used to reconstruct the interaction position and deposited energy. A cost-effective self-triggering scintillation signal read-out and data acquisition (DAQ) system has been developed to achieve a continuous data read-out with negligible electronics dead time. The DAQ prototype has been installed and qualified in an updated version of the XEMIS1 detector. It reaches the performance specifications in scintillation light measurements. Moreover, scintillation signals can also be used for the virtual segmentation of the monolithic detection volume through the matching algorithm of the scintillation and ionization signals based on the light collection map (LCM). This spatial pre-localization of the physical events, called the virtual fiducialization of the active volume, is used to lower the detector occupancy rate when the administered activity is increased to lessen the examination time. The XEMIS1 experimental LCMs indicate that each PMT owns an individual field of view so as to segment the active volume virtually. The preparation work for the XEMIS2 camera operation has been completed in the updated XEMIS1 detector while the XEMIS2 scintillation light measurement system is under commissioning in Nantes Centre Hospitalier Universitaire. • The XEMIS2 camera oriented to the whole-body small animal 3-gamma medical imaging is presented. • The XEMIS2 system is a monolithic liquid xenon Compton camera with a 24 cm axial field of view. • A dedicated cost-effective 16-channel self-triggering scintillation signal front-end read-out electronics called XSRETOT is described. • The experimental light collection maps of an updated version of the XEMIS1 detector have been built, which can be used for the virtual segmentation of the monolithic detection volume to reduce the detector occupancy rate in the context of increasing the administered activity.

Commissioning LHCb’s GPU high level trigger

From 2022 onward, the upgraded LHCb experiment will use a triggerless readout system collecting data at an event rate of 30 MHz. A software-only High Level Trigger will enable unprecedented flexibility for trigger selections. During the first stage (HLT1), a sub-set of the full offline track reconstruction for charged particles is run to select particles of interest based on single or two-track selections. This includes decoding the raw data, clustering of hits, pattern recognition, as well as track fitting, ghost track rejection with machine learning techniques and finally event selections. HLT1 will be processed entirely on O(100) GPUs. We will present the integration of the GPU HLT1 into LHCb’s data acquisition system in preparation for data taking in 2022.

Molecular Hydrogen Prevents Osteoclast Activation in a Glucocorticoid-Induced Osteoporosis Zebrafish Scale Model.

Antioxidants represent a powerful tool for many human diseases and, in particular, molecular hydrogen has unique characteristics that make it a very promising therapeutic agent against osteoporosis. Zebrafish scales offer an innovative model in which new therapeutic approaches against secondary osteoporosis are tested. Scale bone loss obtained by prednisolone (PN) treatment is characterized by increased osteoclast activity and decreased osteoblast activity highlighted with bone enzymatic assays. We used this read-out system to test the therapeutic effects of hydrogen-rich water (HRW), an innovative antioxidant approach. HRW prevented osteoclast activation and bone loss in PN-treated fish scales, as verified by both biochemical and histochemical tartrate-resistant alkaline phosphatase assays. On the other hand, HRW treatment did not prevent PN-dependent osteoblast suppression, as measured by alkaline phosphatase activity. Moreover, HRW treatment did not facilitate the reparation of resorption lacunae induced in scales by PN. Our study highlighted a specific effect of HRW on adult osteoclast activity but not in osteoblasts, introducing an intriguing new antioxidant preventive approach against osteoporosis.

The DAQPATH readout system of the Serenity boards for the CMS Phase-II Upgrade

The Serenity boards are ATCA custom boards used in the readout of the Phase-II CMS detector. Each board can handle up to 144 optical serial links (up to 25Gb/s each) and supports up to two high-performance FPGAs. In several applications the Serenity board is required to aggregate raw events (Front-End data) from the detector at every Accepted Level 1 trigger and route this event fragment to the central DAQ system. The architecture and behavior of the DAQPATH firmware that collects and merges Front-End data and manages their transmission to the DAQ system over 25Gb/s output optical links are here described. • Data, trigger, readout electronics for HEP CMS experiment. • High speed links communication. • HDL firmware design.

Status and recent extensions of the Caribou DAQ system for picosecond timing with an FPGA TDC

Caribou is a flexible open-source DAQ system developed and used within several collaborative frameworks (CERN EP R&D, RD50, AIDAinnova) for laboratory and high-rate beam tests and easy integration of new silicon-pixel detector prototypes. It uses common hardware, firmware and software components that are shared across different projects, thereby reducing the development effort and cost for such readout systems significantly. This contribution introduces the FASTPIX, APTS and DPTS detectors recently integrated in Caribou and their requirements in terms of waveform sampling and timing of digital pulses. A Time-to-Digital-Converter implemented in the Caribou FPGA was developed to overcome the limitations of the previously used oscilloscope-based readout. It allows for precision timing over large time spans required for the Time-of-Arrival, Time-over-Threshold, and position encoding used in the FASTPIX and DPTS test chips with asynchronous digital readout. A time resolution after calibration of better than 10 ps is achieved.

A Compact Reconfigurable Resonator-Based Direct Current Sensing System

A compact and reconfigurable current readout system is presented that is based on microelectromechanical system (MEMS) resonators. The proposed system generates analog and digital outputs by electrothermally tuning the microbeam resonant frequency according to variations in the input current signal. A single resonator is utilized to generate the analog output, while a resonator array operating at different frequencies is utilized to generate a digital one-hot output. Experiments showed that the frequency shift is linearly proportional to the square of the current. The single resonator has a detection limit of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1.16 ~\mu \text{A}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> , and the resonator array offers good static linearity with a maximum differential/integral non-linearity of 0.55/0.23 least significant bits. The single resonator is suitable for applications requiring high-resolution measurements. The proposed resonator sensing system has a small footprint, is compatible with large-scale integration, and provides considerable flexibility for reconfiguration.

Development of a Nondestructive Moldy Coffee Beans Detection System Based on Electronic Nose

Coffee drinks prepared from moldy coffee beans can adversely affect human health. No convenient screening method for detecting the smell of stale coffee beans exists. Accordingly, this study developed an electronic nose (E-nose) system for detecting the smell of coffee beans. This system comprises an environmental control system, a sensor array, and a data signal readout system. The system can distinguish various degrees of mold on coffee beans through the recognition of the smell of the coffee beans. In this study, we established a standard operating procedure to collect gas samples from coffee beans in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment and recorded changes in the signals by using the sensor array after introducing the target gas. Features were first extracted from the collected data, then dimensionality reduction methods such as principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were applied to these features. Thus, their complexity was reduced, and the noise was eliminated. K-nearest neighbor (KNN) and support vector machine (SVM) were adopted as classification algorithms, and the classification accuracy of the proposed system reached 91.77%.

Development of a prototype 16-channel dual gain waveform readout and data transfer system for IACT based telescope camera

A 256-pixel camera for a 4-meter class telescope based on Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique (IACT) is under development. It would be mounted at the focal plane of TeV Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope with Imaging Camera (TACTIC) array element at Mount Abu (Rajasthan, India). The telescope would be used for detection of very high energy gamma rays of celestial origin. Instead of the traditional choice of photo-multiplier tube, the camera employs silicon photo-multiplier (SiPM) as pixel sensor. The front-end electronics of the camera processes signals from 256 pixel sensors. The back-end electronics samples the processed pixel signals, generates event triggers and records the sampled signals. The critical design objectives to be met by the back-end electronics include large dynamic range of photon detection, capability of in-situ gain calibration for each pixel chain, low chance trigger rate, recording the pixel signal profile with a sampling rate of 1 Giga Samples Per Second (GSPS), low dead time (<1 millisecond) and run-time control of the camera operation. Also, the camera cost, power, size and weight should be as low as possible. The important back-end tasks like pixel signal processing, generating pre-triggers, digitization of the pixel pulse profiles, packing and sending the digitized data are performed by the custom designed Cluster Digitizer Module (CDM). CDM is a 16-channel readout system, and its design revolves around an ultra-fast analog sampler chip and a set of FPGAs. The CDM is thoroughly tested in the lab using test signals from SiPM as well as high performance function generator. The paper describes the design, development and performance of the prototype CDM.

Universal scaling theory of electrochemical immunosensors: An analytical approach to define and compare performance metrics

Electrochemical immunosensors have emerged as a versatile, sensitive, and selective sensor technology of choice for a variety of applications, including detection of proteins, food pathogens, bacteria, viruses, and cancerous molecules. The combination of highly specific biorecognition elements and electrical readout systems facilitates the detection of antigens down to femtomolar concentrations. However, a lack of quantitative theoretical framework has made the design, optimization, and comparison of sensors difficult, without a clear and definitive understanding of the limits of detection, dynamic range, and sensitivity. In this paper, we integrate reaction-diffusion and effective media theories to derive a generalized scaling model for an arbitrary immunosensor that relates the relative change of redox current to the corresponding change in antigen concentration, through scaling exponents related to the geometry of biomolecules diffusion and the measurement resolution. Experimental data from dozens of immunosensors (for a variety of antigens, material systems, and sensor geometry) validate our sensor-agnostic scaling formula. Our results would allow cross-calibration of the emerging and traditional immunosensors reported across the literature and define a physics-based, standardized methodology to compare performance metrics, such as limits of detection, dynamic range, and sensitivity.

A 3D Nanomaterials‐Printed Wearable, Battery‐Free, Biocompatible, Flexible, and Wireless pH Sensor System for Real‐Time Health Monitoring

AbstractThe pH sensing devices can provide important health information with applications in infection detection, disease diagnosis, and personalized medicine. However, these devices are often expensive with modest flexibility and require bulky readout instruments, thus inappropriate for wearable, remote, and continuous health monitoring applications. Herein, an integrated, miniaturized, modular, wearable, battery‐free, biocompatible, flexible, 3D‐printed (WB2F3D) sensor system for on‐demand, continuous, wireless, and real‐time pH monitoring is proposed, developed, and fully characterized. The 3D‐printing of nanomaterials on skin‐like flexible substrates is innovatively applied to enable multimaterial and multilayer printing of the sensors, reusable electronic/communication circuity, and antennas in a tailorable, low‐cost, and time‐efficient manner. The battery‐free and flexible readout system is designed to enable wireless and on‐demand energy and data transmission for continuous and real‐time pH monitoring. This sensor system exhibits high sensitivity (≈|51.76| mV pH−1), specificity, repeatability, reproducibility toward various pH ranges (3.0–10.0), excellent mechanical flexibility, and outstanding biocompatibility (cell viability &gt; = 90%). It successfully demonstrates the pH change monitoring in an ex situ hydrogel‐based wound model. The WB2F3D sensor system is envisioned to provide an integrated platform for accurate, on‐demand, battery‐free, wireless, and real‐time human health monitoring, and another step toward personalized medicine.

Study on picometer-level laser interferometer readout system in TianQin project

As a central payload of TianQin space-borne gravitational wave detector, inter satellite laser interferometer allows to measure distance variance with extremely high precision. The readout system, or phasemeter, is often based on all digital phase locked loop in an FPGA. However, sampling jitter is one of the main inevitable noise sources during digitization. Here we use the pilot tone correction to suppress sampling jitter noise. To obtain accurate correction coefficient rather than preset values by normal pilot tone (NPT) correction, a least squares method (LSM) is presented. The experimental results show that the noise floor after pilot tone correction reaches 5 µrad/Hz1/2, which meets the TianQin project displacement noise requirement of 1 pm/Hz1/2. Besides, the correlation between the signal corrected before and after by LSM method is less than half of that by NPT method.

Updated constraints on sterile neutrino mixing in the OPERA experiment using a new νe identification method

Abstract This paper describes a new νe identification method specifically designed to improve the low-energy ($\lt {30}\, {\rm GeV}$) νe identification efficiency attained by enlarging the emulsion film scanning volume with the next-generation emulsion readout system. A relative increase of 25–70% in the νe low-energy region is expected, leading to improvements in the OPERA sensitivity to neutrino oscillations in the framework of the 3 + 1 model. The method is applied to a subset of data where the detection efficiency increase is expected to be more relevant, and one additional νe candidate is found. The analysis combined with the ντ appearance results improves the upper limit on sin 22θμe to 0.016 at 90% C.L. in the MiniBooNE allowed region $\Delta m^2_{41} \sim {0.3}\, {\rm eV}^{2}$.

PEC/Colorimetric Dual-Mode Lab-on-Paper Device via BiVO4/FeOOH Nanocomposite In Situ Modification on Paper Fibers for Sensitive CEA Detection.

A dual-mode lab-on-paper device based on BiVO4/FeOOH nanocomposites as an efficient generating photoelectrochemical (PEC)/colorimetric signal reporter has been successfully constructed by integration of the lab-on-paper sensing platform and PEC/colorimetric detection technologies for sensitive detection of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). Concretely, the BiVO4/FeOOH nanocomposites were in situ synthesized onto the paper-working electrode (PWE) through hydrothermal synthesis of the BiVO4 layer on cellulose fibers (paper-based BiVO4) which were initially modified by Au nanoparticles for improving the conductivity of three dimensional PWE, and then the photo-electrodeposition of FeOOH onto the paper-based BiVO4 to construct the paper-based BiVO4/FeOOH for the portable dual-mode lab-on-paper device. The obtained nanocomposites with an FeOOH needle-like structure deposited on the BiVO4 layer exhibits enhanced PEC response activity due to its effective separation of the electron-hole pair which could further accelerate the PEC conversion efficiency during the sensing process. With the introduction of CEA targets onto the surface of nanocomposite-modified PWE assisted by the interaction with the CEA antibody from a specific recognition property, a signal-off PEC signal state with a remarkable photocurrent response decreasing trend can be achieved, realizing the quantitative detection of CEA with the PEC signal readout mode. By means of a smart origami paper folding, the colorimetric signal readout is achieved by catalyzing 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) to generate blue oxidized TMB in the presence of H2O2 due to the satisfied enzyme-like catalytic activity of the needle-like structure, FeOOH, thereby achieving the dual-mode signal readout system for the proposed lab-on-paper device. Under the optimal conditions, the PEC and colorimetric signals measurement were effectively carried out, and the corresponding linear ranges were 0.001-200 ng·mL-1 and 0.5-100 ng·mL-1 separately, with the limit of detection of 0.0008 and 0.013 ng·mL-1 for each dual-mode. The prepared lab-on-paper device also presented a successful application in serum samples for the detection of CEA, providing a potential pathway for the sensitive detection of target biomarkers in clinical application.