Detection of thermal neutrons using ZnS(Ag):6LiF neutron scintillator read out with WLS fibers and SiPMs

For a single-channel detection unit which represents the elementary building block of this detection system we achieved a neutron detection efficiency of ~65% at 1.2 Å, a background count rate <10−3Hz and a gamma-sensitivity <10−6 (measured with a 60Co source), while the dead time is ~20 μs and the multi-count ratio is <1%. This performance was achieved even for SiPM dark count rates of up to ~2 MHz.