Design of low-cost digital pulse processing unit for gamma spectrometry

Abstract Gamma spectrometers are used to quantify and identify radioisotopes in the sample under test. There is a recent interest around the world in implementing low-cost gamma spectrometers. One of the main parts of the modern gamma spectrometer is the digital pulse processing unit (DPP). The implementation of this unit using advanced microcontroller chips has appeared in recent years as an attractive approach. This is due to its advanced performance and low cost. In this paper, we present a design flow to implement a DPP unit using an ARM Cortex-M3-based microcontroller chip. The sodium iodide detector is the targeted detector for this design. Our prototype is approved experimentally to construct spectrums comparable to commercial devices. And it can cope with input count rates up to 45 kC/s.