Development of a flexible and low-cost digital pulse processing module with α/β discrimination for portable TDCR...

This study developed a flexible and low-cost digital pulse processing (DPP) module with α/β discrimination for portable triple to double coincidence ratio (TDCR) counters, meeting the increasing demand for on-site activity measurement and standardization of radionuclide in nuclear power plants and medical radionuclide applications. The newly developed DPP module integrates a coincidence algorithm within the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), enabling real-time extraction of pulse characteristics based on coincidence event triggers. The features extracted from each pulse are transmitted to the Personal Computer (PC) in the form of an event list, allowing flexible selection of regions of interest (ROIs) in the pulse shape discrimination (PSD)-Energy spectrum for independent spectral display via dedicated software. Additionally, the module's cost has been optimized to support broader on-site applications in the future. Validation experiments were conducted using a mixed source of ²⁴¹Am and ⁹⁰Sr/⁹⁰Y in radioactive equilibrium to evaluate the α/β discrimination capability. Furthermore, comparison measurements with the DT5730S module were performed for ³H, ¹⁴C, ³²P, and ³⁵S samples under identical detector and operational conditions.