Development of a fast multi-parameter data acquisition system for microbeam analyses

A commercially available Personal Computer (PC)-based multi-parameter data acquisition system has been developed for ion microbeam analyses. The PC is equipped with a recent fast processor, a large volume of memory and a general multi-channel Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC) interface board. When a signal from an X-ray detector (PIXE), from a particle detector (RBS)or from others triggers this ADC for data acquisition, X-Y beam scanning control signals which indicate the beam position are also digitized at the same time. These data are addressed to the 3D matrices in the memory space, that consist of 1024 channels for the energy spectra and 150 x 150 pixels for corresponding the beam scan area. Real time data processing can be done in addition to this data acquisition by the fast processor with the large memory. Simultaneous PIXE and RBS elemental mapping and ion beam induced charge (IBIC) imaging on fine structure diodes have been demonstrated with this system. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.