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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
A. Wojenski, K. Pozniak, G. Kasprowicz, W. Zabolotny, A. Byszuk, P. Zienkiewicz, M. Chernyshova, T. Czarski
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 69 | Number 3 | May 2016 | Pages 595-604
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-189
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This work refers to the measurement system for soft-X-ray radiation (SXR) diagnostics using gaseous electron multiplier (GEM) detectors. In terms of tokamak plasma parameter control and optimization, it is important to determine the level of SXR generated by plasma. This work describes the whole system including the GEM detector, electronic modules, and data acquisition (DAQ) path. The structure of the DAQ system is presented in terms of hardware, firmware, and software architecture. The currently developed hardware allows sampling of the GEM detector signals with 125-MHz frequency and real-time field-programmable gate array (FPGA) processing. It enables processing of all events generated by the highest possible photon flux for the GEM detector. The developed FPGA firmware registers digitized GEM detector signals with a global trigger up to 625 kHz with all 64 channels sampling simultaneously and stores them in the local memory. Therefore, it makes it possible to obtain the photon energy spectra at high photon flux (105 to 106 counts · mm−2 · s−1) in online acquisition mode. The software block performs a DAQ system start-up configuration and provides the user interface. The first preliminary results of laboratory tests are also presented.