Progress in tagged neutron beams for cargo inspections

The use of neutron beams produced via the D + T reaction and tagged by the associated particle technique has been recently applied to cargo container inspections. In the EURITRACK project, a portable sealed-tube neutron generator has been designed and built to deliver 14 MeV neutron beams tagged by a matrix of 64 YAP:Ce alpha-particle detectors read by a multi-anode HAMAMATSU H8500 Photomultiplier Tube. The performances of this alpha-particle detector have been determined as a function of the count rate at the Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Zagreb (Croatia). Moreover, tests of the final detector operated inside the sealed-tube neutron generator are fully satisfactory.