Study of silicon+6LiF thermal neutron detectors: GEANT4 simulations versus real data

Research and development on alternative thermal neutron detection technologies and methods are nowadays needed as a possible replacement of 3He-based ones. Commercial solid state silicon detectors, coupled with neutron converter layers containing 6Li, have been proved to represent a viable solution for several applications as present in the literature. In order to better understand the detailed operation and the response and efficiency of such detectors, a series of dedicated GEANT4 simulations were performed and compared with real data collected in a few different configurations. The results show an excellent agreement between data and simulations, indicating that the behavior of the detector is fully understood.