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the DLD meander (positive potential difference between anode and back side of MCP stack) where it induces
electrical pulses in the delayline by capacitive coupling. The pulses are traveling to the both ends of the
meander within a time determined by the hitting position. The average time at both ends of the meander
relative to an external repetitive clock generates the time coordinate if required.
Delayline detectors are single counting devices; therefore the complete device works linearly even at
extremely low numbers of incoming electrons.
The detection principle limits the maximum detectable count rates at least due to the maximum delay of the
meanders. Currently, the main limitation is given by the appearance of multi-hit events, which can only be
resolved up to a certain degree. The maximum count rate in the fourfold coincidence measurement is right
now about a couple of million counts per second. The exact limit depends on the size of the active area of the
DLD.
5.2 Basic Operational Modes of the Delayline Detector
5.2.1 2D(x, y) Area Detection
The arrival times of pulses per event at the 4 ends of each DLD meander/ quadrant are subtracted in order
to determine a position in x and y (x: tx1-tx2; y: ty1-ty2). The TDC stop signals are grouped internally in pairs to
form the x- and y-coordinates. All DLD software adjustments are done by the end-user software according to
the user’s chosen parameters.
5.2.2 3D(x, y, t) time resolved imaging
The delayline detector may measure all events in temporal reference to an external clock. For this mode, the
user needs to start the USB2.0-TDC by an external clock, providing a low jitter LVTTL signal to the start input
of the TDC.
Time measurements are performed by summing up the arrival times of pulses at the end of the DLD
meanders, i.e. the same results which are used to determine positions for each event are summed. It is
possible to sum only tx1 and tx2 (tsumx) or ty1 and ty2 (tsumy). Because both sums should carry the same
temporal information of a time related experiment, the total sum t(DLD) of all four time measurements (tx1,
tx2, ty1, ty2) may be a good choice as well. The results of all these time sums correspond to t(sum) = t(offset)
+ n * (t(hit) – t(reference)), where (t(hit) – t(reference)) is the interesting time (e.g. ToF) in a given experiment,
n is the number of summed time results (2 or 4 results), and t(offset) is a device related constant, which
depends on cable lengths, electronics propagation times, experiments setup etc.. Therefore, it is possible to
completely determine position and time of each event from only 4 precise time measurements.
The software may group all measured time sums in plain 1D time histograms, which are valid for the chosen
region of interest (ROI). The time bin size for each readout channel x1, x2, y1 and y2 is 82ps in the I-mode
(see chapter 8.2). The channel width in the 1D histogram is 41ps for the tsumx and tsumy histograms and
20.5ps for the total t(DLD) histogram.
The time bin size for the readout channels in the R-mode (see chapter 8.2) is 27ps and the channel width in
the 1D histogram is 13.5ps for the tsumx and tsumy histograms and 6.75ps for the total t(DLD) histogram.
Due to the calculation of the tsums and t(DLD), the time axis is expanded virtually (simplified expression). The
t(DLD) signature can be used in order to setup the regions of interest in time for measurements of time
resolved images, the software is able to sample 3D histograms as image stacks in time, where each image
corresponds to one time bin of the total time histogram.