A multi-parameter discrimination digital positron annihilation lifetime spectrometer using a fast digital oscilloscope

Positron annihilation lifetime (PAL) spectroscopy is widely used in the characterization of material microstructures. It has a very high sensitivity to the material defects. This paper describes how we developed a digital PAL spectrometer with two barium fluoride (BaF2) detectors and reading the data with a fast digital oscilloscope. We achieved better time performance for the digital PAL spectrometer using a multi-parameter discrimination method and various pulse smoothing algorithms. With two BaF2 detectors in the coincidence mode, we achieved a time resolution of 160 ps for 0.511 MeV annihilation gamma rays. The multi-parameter discrimination method implemented can remove incorrect events more effectively than the conventional energy discrimination method. With this enhancement in event discrimination, the digital PAL spectrometer’s time performance has improved, which results in more accurate PAL characterization. In a lifetime measurement, the PAL spectrometer’s time resolution is about 130 ps, which is much better than most PAL spectrometers. With the multi-parameter discrimination method, the resolution component from the incorrect events decreases drastically, and the leading edge distortion of the PAL spectrum is significantly improved.