Optical transmission of low-level signals with high dynamic range using the optically-coupled current-mirror architecture

Abstract In this paper we illustrate the application of a novel circuit architecture, the Optically-Coupled Current-Mirror (OCCM), conceived for the linear transmission of analogue signals via fibre optics. We installed 880 OCCMs in the PMTs of the first two telescopes of the cosmic-ray experiment Pierre Auger. The Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) has been designed to increase the statistics of cosmic-rays with energies above 10 18 eV . Two different techniques have been adopted: the Surface Detector (SD) modules that comprise 1600 tanks spaced each other by 1.5 km within an area of 3000 km 2 . On the other side there are four buildings, the Optical Stations (OS), in which six telescopes are installed in each one of the four OS, at the periphery of the site, looking inwards. The telescopes are sensitive to the UV light created at the moment a high-energy shower develops in the atmosphere and is within the field-of-view (FOV) of the telescopes. The PAO is located in the Northern Patagonia, not far from the Cordillera de Los Andes, in Argentina. Both detector types, FD telescopes and SD modules, are sensitive to the UV light resulting from the interaction of high-energy particles and the nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere. The UV-sensitive telescopes operate only at night when the sky is completely dark. Otherwise, the light collected by the telescopes may give origin to severe damage in particular if those telescopes point at twilight or to artificial light sources. The duty cycle of the telescope's operation is therefore limited to about 10% or slightly more than that, if data are taken also when there is a partial presence of the Moon. The SD modules establish, independently of the telescopes, the geometry of the event. At the same time a shower reconstruction is performed using the telescope's data, independently of the SD modules. Use of both sets of data, taken by the FD telescopes and by the SD modules, allows the hybrid reconstruction that significantly improves the data quality. One important feature incorporated in each one of the 880 PMTs was a novel circuit architecture capable to read out the slow record of data, which is taken every 20 s.