Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
8173465 | Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment | 2015 | 6 Pages |
Abstract
We report on the fabrication and characterization of a neutron scintillation detector based on a Li-glass-polymer composite that utilizes a combination of pulse height and pulse shape discrimination (PSD) to achieve high gamma rejection. In contrast to fast neutron detection in a PSD medium, we combine two scintillating materials that do not possess inherent neutron/gamma PSD properties to achieve effective PSD/pulse height discrimination in a composite material. Unlike recoil-based fast neutron detection, neutron/gamma discrimination can be robust even at low neutron energies due to the high Q-value neutron capture on 6Li. A cylindrical detector with a 5.05Â cm diameter and 5.08Â cm height was fabricated from scintillating 1Â mm diameter Li-glass rods and scintillating polyvinyltoluene. The intrinsic efficiency for incident fission neutrons from 252Cf and gamma rejection of the detector were measured to be 0.33% and less than 10â8, respectively. These results demonstrate the high selectivity of the detector for neutrons and provide motivation for prototyping larger detectors optimized for specific applications, such as detection and event-by-event spectrometry of neutrons produced by fission.
Keywords
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Physics and Astronomy
Instrumentation
Authors
M. Mayer, J. Nattress, V. Kukharev, A. Foster, A. Meddeb, C. Trivelpiece, Z. Ounaies, I. Jovanovic,