A novel method to measure low flux ambient thermal neutrons with 3He proportional counters

A pulse shape discrimination method to discriminate neutron events from backgrounds based on the double-pulse effect of 3He proportional counters is proposed and detailed in this paper. We made an ambient thermal neutron measurement system composed of a commercial 3He proportional counter tube and the corresponding readout electronics. The background of the system has been measured and the minimum detectable amount of the 3He proportional counter tube will be reduced by an order of magnitude with this method. The system was applied to measure the ambient thermal neutron flux inside a large neutron shielding structure at a deep underground laboratory and the pulse shape discrimination method proves to be effective.