I'm wondering what the main performance limitation on a scintillator device is, the actual light generation material is a lot faster than the PMT from what I can see, with the tubes I have seen a rise time of 18 nS and a pulse width of 45 nS which would be around nine times slower than the plastic material you mention. Would we need to actually electrically stretch the pulse so a counter can clock it in?.
I'll have a play with the LM359 and see what I end up with, it is a current input device and the app notes do include a video amplifier design, but it appears to have no DC input mode and does requires an input cap to isolate it.
Like Richard Hull I'd be very interested in seeing a design when you finish, as you are running a computer simulation of your design then it's likely going to be much better than anything I could end up with using a "suck it and see" approach. Could you use any PCB design services for prototyping at all?. I can whip up a design on Protel and convert it to postscript to email and then print out on a windows computer for exposure of the resist.
regards Mark
Created on Friday, June 15, 2001 7:29 AM EDT by Mark G Harriss