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arXiv · 2609.22116

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

S. Abovyan·A. Chilingarian·D. Pokhsraryan·B. Sargsyan·T. Karapetyan·V. Danielyan
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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.

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S. Abovyan, A. Chilingarian, D. Pokhsraryan, B. Sargsyan, T. Karapetyan, V. Danielyan. 2026-08-19. A Gamma/Electron Spectrometer with Logarithmic ADC based on LC Tank Ring-Down Oscillation Counting. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22116

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