Readout Electronics: Wideband Pulse Amplifier

This is part of my readout electronics system.

A high speed amplifier unit I developed a while back, mainly to amplify fast PMT pulses.

It uses two uA733 pulse amplifiers with a gain of 20dB, at around 200Mhz with a rise time of 2.5ns. The output of the first one can be inverted with the switch on the front of the unit, which then switches a soviet reed relay (РЗС55А 1101) to select the output. The input is AC coupled.

For input protection I used fast shottky diodes rather than normal diodes, such that it recovers from overloads more quickly and it clips the signal at 200mV overloads rather than 700mV which is desirable, since those amplifiers are expensive.

Since my standard analog voltages are ±15V I put two local regulators on the unit, for the required ±5V for the amplifiers.

Amplifier PCB Amplifier Front Panel

Contents