Digital approaches to field neutron spectrometry

Miniature digitising electronics have been coupled to a detector based on an organic liquid scintillator to form a digital neutron and gamma spectrometer. The electronics used are small enough to be packaged with a detector to form an easily portable unit. This miniaturisation has some impact on the achievable sampling rate and resolution, in comparison with the bulkier devices often used for such an application, so it is not clear which of the many pulse shape discrimination algorithms reported in the literature is best suited for use with this device. To explore this, the spectrometer was exposed to a selection of the radiation fields available at NPL, and three different neutron/gamma discrimination algorithms were compared on an equal footing. The energy resolution of the device, and its ease of use, were compared with those of a conventional analogue system.