A multiplex readout method for position sensitive boron coated straw neutron detector

A 1 m×1 m boron coated straw neutron detector is expected to be used to build the small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) instrument of the Compact Pulsed Hadron Source (CPHS) in Tsinghua University. A multiplex readout method based on summing circuits in columns and rows is studied for this large area position sensitive detector. In this method, the outputs of charge sensitive preamplifiers are combined by columns and rows at two ends of the detector, and then the shaped signals are sampled by flash ADCs. With the position reconstructed algorithm implemented in FPGA which analyzes the charge division and column and row number of signals, the 3-D position information of neutron events can be obtained. The position resolution and counting rate performance of this method are analyzed, and the comparison to the delay-line readout method is also given. With the multiplex readout method, the scale of readout electronics can be greatly reduced and a good position resolution can be reached. A readout electronics system for a detector module which consists 4×10 straw tubes is designed based on this method, and the test with neutron beam shows an average 3-D spatial resolution of 4×4×6.8mm3.