A Labview based FPGA data acquisition with integrated stage and beam transport control

We report on a new FPGA based data acquisition system developed for the CSIRO Nuclear Microprobe (NMP) which is tightly integrated with both target positioning and beam transport. The data acquisition system called MicrodaQ is based on National Instruments Labview FPGA and numerous instrumentation modules spread over several PC's. Beam transport uses a feedback control loop to optimise current on target for long unmanned experiments. These upgrades are discussed in detail and an example of the systems use for μ-Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) analysis on a Doriri apatite is briefly described.