Development of a solid-state position sensitive neutron detector prototype based on 6Li-glass scintillator and digital SiPM arrays

Photomultiplier tubes (PMT) have been used extensively as the photodetector of choice in scintillation based detectors for cold and thermal neutrons. However, the limitations of PMT based scintillation neutron detectors such as their sensitivity to magnetic fields or their high operating voltages (> 1 kV) have triggered the search for alternative photodetectors for these applications. Silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) operate in the single photon regime, have lower operating voltages (similar to 20-70 V) than PMTs and are insusceptible to magnetic field. Additional features of the SiPMs like their low production cost, compactness and higher readout rates make them a potential candidate to replace the photodetector part in these developments. Therefore, we are developing a scintillation neutron detector based on SiPM technology. The detector prototype with an active detection area of 13 cm x 13 cm is aimed to be used in the future at the TREFF instrument of the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ) in Garching, Germany, for neutron reflectometry experiments. In this paper, we report the detector concept, its development and the simulation results for design optimization.