A PXI-based Multi-channel Data Acquisition System for Fast Transient Pulses

Abstract: In this paper, we design a PXI-based, multi-channel data-acquisition system (DAS) mainly applicable to recording one-shot fast transient pulses in nuclear physics experiments. The system consists of one NI PXIe-1085 chassis, containing a controller card and at most 16 data-acquisition (DAQ) cards. Every single DAQ card has a sampling rate of 1GS/s and a 12bit vertical resolution with the PXI interface and SFP+ transceiver for data transmission. When the system is put into operation near the pulsed radiation source, the SFP+ optical fiber channel enables a timely data transmission to a remote server. All of these cards in the chassis can be synchronized using PXI timing and triggering resources. Additionally, a simple DAS software is developed to display the pulsed signals captured and communicate with the host PC for remote control and data upload. After careful calibration, preliminary tests show that every DAQ channel achieves an analog bandwidth higher than 200MHz and an ENOB of more than 9 bits at a 1GS/s sampling rate. Owing to such high speed and resolution, the system may facilitate improvements in extracting maximum information from transient signals. Furthermore, with great scalability and high-speed data transmission, the system can be used for other nuclear physics experiments.