Data acquisition and control system for an evolving nuclear microprobe

The application possibilities of the nuclear microprobe are constantly evolving which places new requirements on the data acquisition and microbeam control systems. MeV SIMS experiments for example, require the ability to pulse a continuous beam and steer it in the X-Y plane. For channeling RBS and STIM experiments, the sample needs to be rotated over two axes. Once it is positioned in the channeling direction, patterned irradiation may be needed. Additionally, with the evolution of digital electronics, it is now possible and sometimes preferred to perform signal processing in the digital domain as oppose to analogue signal chains in NIM modules. In this work we present the most recent upgrades to the data acquisition and control system developed at Rudjer Boskovic Institute. A data acquisition/control system based on a Xilinx Virtex 6 FPGA was developed which can evolve with the microprobe and be reconfigured for various applications. The real time reprogrammable nature of the FPGA coupled with a modular design approach, allow for the ADCs, processing algorithms and communication protocols to be interchanged and upgraded while keeping a constant user interface through the SPECTOR software package.