Progress with Time of Flight Detectors

As with the PMT detectors, LPPX’s time-of-flight detector noise problems were also resolved.

Per LPPX’s July report:

Consultant Art Gardener provided us with more heavily shielded coax cable, and along with some aluminum foil brought the electrical noise down to very low levels. 

This is important as we hope to capture the smaller signal from deuterium-tritium reactions, which can give us a measure of ion density. 

In the shots in July, we were still limited by the range of the oscilloscope which allows only 256 levels from top to bottom.  However, in August we intend to remedy this situation by feeding each time of flight signal to two oscilloscope channels, with different sensitivities, so the entire dynamic range of the PMTs from mV to tens of V will be observable in one or the other channel.