Journal
NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS & METHODS IN PHYSICS RESEARCH SECTION A-ACCELERATORS SPECTROMETERS DETECTORS AND ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
Volume 908, Issue -, Pages 110-116Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2018.08.016
Keywords
Neutron detection; LiCAF; Pulse shape analysis
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Funding
- Defense Threat Reduction Agency, United States [HDTRA17-245-26]
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With the increasing cost and decreasing availability of He-3, there have been many efforts to find alternative neutron detection materials. Lithium calcium aluminum fluoride (LiCAF) enriched to 95% Li-6 doped with europium was evaluated here as a replacement material for He-3. Wafers 0.5 cm thick, consisting of LiCAF crystals in a rubberized matrix, were embedded with wavelength shifting fibers (WSF) and mated to silicon photo-multipliers (SiPMs) to measure the photon response in a flux of neutrons from a DD neutron generator. Excellent discrimination was realized between neutrons and gammas, and both pulse-height discrimination and pulse-shape analysis were explored. A Figure of Merit (FoM) of 1.03 was achieved. By applying pulse-shape analysis, a simple neutron count output was generated by utilizing a low-pass filter to suppress fast pulses from the SiPM output and subsequently applying a threshold to the remaining signal. Custom electronics were built to bias the SiPMs, then amplify, filter, discriminate, and digitize the LiCAF/WSF scintillation photons, resulting in a digital pulse that can easily be counted with any microcontroller or field programmable gate array. A significant advantage of LiCAF is that it can be fabricated into any shape/size (when embedded in a rubberized matrix), and the light output and transparency is sufficient to allow for thicker scintillators which enable detection of both thermal and epithermal neutrons. This work demonstrated that Eu:LiCAF is capable of discriminating gammas from neutrons and is a potential replacement material for He-3, especially for nuclear security applications and neutron spectroscopy.
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