A Gamma/Electron Spectrometer with Logarithmic ADC based on LC Tank Ring-Down Oscillation Counting

Abstract

This paper describes the operating principle, circuit implementation, and mathematical basis of a logarithmic analog-to-digital converter (ADC) that exploits the natural exponential decay of a damped LC tank oscillator. An input charge pulse excites a tuned LC resonator into free oscillation. A multi-stage high-speed amplifier chain buffers the decaying waveform, and a fast comparator counts the number of oscillation cycles that exceed a programmable threshold. Because the tank envelope decays exponentially, the cycle count is proportional to the natural logarithm of the input charge, yielding logarithmic compression over a wide dynamic range without explicit logarithmic circuitry. The upgraded unit incorporates a modern MCU with USB, Ethernet interfaces and SD card for collected data storage. The architecture is well suited to applications requiring large dynamic range in a compact, low-power implementation.

Results on ²³⁵U(n_th,f) isotopic fission yields using prompt and delayed gamma rays at the FIPPS spectrometer of the ILL
T Materna, P Herran, M Ballu +11
HAL11 Sep 2026PreprintCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Full textNuclear physicsHALarXiv
In-Memory AM Demodulation Using an All-Silicon Independent-Dual-Gate Gain-Cell Memory with <10⁻²² A Leakage Determined by Single-Electron Counting
Katsuhiko Nishiguchi, Toshiaki Hayashi, Kensaku Chida +3
arXiv26 Sep 2026PreprintarXiv licenceFull textApplied physics & instrumentation Condensed matterarXiv
Electron Counting by Design: Antiferromagnetic Ribbons Double as Charge Reservoirs to Stabilize Hypervalent Selenium and Tellurium Chains
Subhendu Jana, E.A. Chirantha Edirisinghe, Ian Leahy +3
ChemRxiv14 Oct 2026PreprintCC BY-NC-NDFull textAtomic, molecular & optical physicsChemRxiv
Chirped-pulse millimetre-wave spectrometer for the 140–180 GHz region
C. Lauzin, H. Schmutz, J. A. Agner +1
Molecular Physics9 Oct 2026Peer-reviewedLicence not stated7 citedPhysical chemistry General physicsHAL
Inverse-designed integrated computational spectrometer with sub-ångström resolution
Kai Wang, Enge Zhang, Luyang Liu +4
Optics Express6 Oct 2026Peer-reviewedPublisher termsOptics & photonicsCrossref

Cite

BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{abovyan2026gammaelectron,
  title = {{A Gamma/Electron Spectrometer with Logarithmic ADC based on LC Tank Ring-Down Oscillation Counting}},
  author = {S. Abovyan and A. Chilingarian and D. Pokhsraryan and B. Sargsyan and T. Karapetyan and V. Danielyan},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.22116},
  eprint = {2609.22116},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22116},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - A Gamma/Electron Spectrometer with Logarithmic ADC based on LC Tank Ring-Down Oscillation Counting
AU  - S. Abovyan
AU  - A. Chilingarian
AU  - D. Pokhsraryan
AU  - B. Sargsyan
AU  - T. Karapetyan
AU  - V. Danielyan
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/01
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.22116
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22116
AB  - This paper describes the operating principle, circuit implementation, and mathematical basis of a logarithmic analog-to-digital converter (ADC) that exploits the natural exponential decay of a damped LC tank oscillator. An input charge pulse excites a tuned LC resonator into free oscillation. A multi-stage high-speed amplifier chain buffers the decaying waveform, and a fast comparator counts the number of oscillation cycles that exceed a programmable threshold. Because the tank envelope decays exponentially, the cycle count is proportional to the natural logarithm of the input charge, yielding logarithmic compression over a wide dynamic range without explicit logarithmic circuitry. The upgraded unit incorporates a modern MCU with USB, Ethernet interfaces and SD card for collected data storage. The architecture is well suited to applications requiring large dynamic range in a compact, low-power implementation.
ER  -

Abstract

Related

Cite