Pulse Stretching Amplifier - James Tarpo Jr. and Margaret Tarpo Department of Chemistry

Pulse Stretching Amplifier

The Pulse Stretching Amplifier is used in Hanzhe Liu’s optical detection experiment to bridge the gap in speed between a high-speed photodiode detector and a lower speed data acquisition system (DAQ). The photodiode produces pulses that are too short and too fast to reliably capture on the DAQ. The Pulse Stretching Amplifier captures this pulse by integrating the incoming charge in time over a user-defined interval and holding the integrated value until the DAQ captures the final value. It then resets the output at another user defined time period so that it is ready to capture the next pulse.

The amplifier is externally synchronized by the source laser. Two outputs let the user read the integration window and the output reset time. Three inputs let the user change the start integration time, the duration of integration, and the time delay before resetting the output.

Research Group Contact:	Hanzhe Liu, Chemistry
Amy Contact:	Gregory Eakins, Chemistry