Development of an automated multisample scanning system for nuclear track etched detectors

We have developed an automated scanning system for handling a large number of nuclear track etched detectors (NTEDs). The system consists of a magazine station for sample storage, a robotic sample loader, a high-speed wide-area digital imaging microscope device (modified HSP-1000) and PitFit software for analyzing etch pits. We investigated the performance of the system using CR-39 plastic NTED samples exposed to high-energy heavy ions and fast neutrons. When applying the system to fast neutron dosimetry, the typical scanning speed was about 100 samples/day with a scan area of 4 cm2/sample. The neutron doses obtained from a fully automatic measurement agreed closely with those from a semi-automatic measurement. These results indicate the feasibility of fully automatic scanning of CR-39 personal neutron dosimeters. The system is also expected to be applicable to future large-scale experiments using CR-39 plastic and BP-1 glass NTEDs for observing ultraheavy galactic cosmic rays with high mass resolution.