Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
1822275 | Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment | 2016 | 4 Pages |
Abstract
When a thermal neutron is absorbed by 10B in the 10B(n,α)7Li reaction, there is a chance of 94% that a 478 keV photon be emitted by an excited 7Li nucleus. This reaction is exothermic with a Q-value of 2.31 MeV and the nuclei are emitted with kinetic energies of E(α)=1.47 MeV and E(7Li*)=0.84 MeV. This implies that the 478 keV γ line is emitted by a moving 7Li nucleus and hence is expected to be Doppler broadened. In the present work we suggest to use this broadening of the γ line as a fingerprint for the detection of thermal neutrons using a high resolution gamma spectrometer. We thus developed a Monte Carlo program using a MATLAB code based on a High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector coupled with a Boron Carbide (B4C) sheet to calculate the γ line broadening. Our simulation shows that the FWHM width of the resulting γ line is 12.6 keV, in good agreement with our measurement. Hence the broadened γ line emitted by the 10B(n,αγ)7Li reaction and detected by a HPGe detector shows that this method is an effective tool for neutron detection while maintaining good gamma discrimination.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Physics and Astronomy
Instrumentation
Authors
Y. Ben-Galim, U. Wengrowicz, R. Moreh, I. Orion, A. Raveh,