A LOW-COST CORRELATOR EMPLOYING A PERSONAL-COMPUTER

The intention of this paper is to describe the design of a 16-bit correlation setup employing a personal computer (PC) used in intensity fluctuation spectroscopy. It is based on a hardware acquisition board which counts the photons detected in the selected sampling time. The calculation of the correlation coefficients is achieved with a PC by means of a suitable software program. This arrangement permits one to obtain various kinds of information from the recorded data, i.e., it is possible to evaluate other statistical estimators instead of the usual correlation function. Experimental tests of the apparatus have been obtained by measuring the light scattered by a liquid suspension of polystyrene latex spheres.