An optimized online filter stack spectrometer

Abstract

The spectrum of laser-plasma-generated X-rays is very important as it can characterize electron dynamics and also be useful for applications, and nowadays with the forthcoming high-repetition-rate laser-plasma experiments, there is a raising demand for online diagnosis for the X-ray spectrum. In this paper, scintillators and silicon PIN diodes are used to build a wideband online filter stack spectrometer. The genetic algorithm is used to optimize the arrangements of the X-ray sensors and filters by minimizing the condition number of the response matrix, thus the unfolding error can be significantly decreased according to the numerical experiments. The detector responses are quantitatively calibrated by irradiating the scintillator and PIN diode using different nuclides and comparing the measured γ-ray peaks. Finally, a 15-channel spectrometer prototype has been implemented. The X-ray detector, front-end electronics, and back-end electronics are integrated into the prototype, and the prototype can determine the spectrum with 1 kHz repetition rates.