SIZE EFFECTS ON THE EFFICIENCY OF NEUTRON SHIELDING IN NANOCOMPOSITES - A FULL-RANGE ANALYSIS

Multiphase composites composed of a continuous hydrogenous (polymeric) phase and of neutron absorbing filler particles are attractive candidate materials for the design of light-weight neutron shields. While the characteristic size of the inclusions is traditionally in the micrometer range, we argue that the shielding performance of the composite is significantly enhanced for decreasing filler particle size. Within a semiclassical approximation scheme we analytically determine the corresponding scaling law valid for inclusions from the nanometer scale up to macroscopic sizes and recover meaningful limiting cases. We find that amongst polymer composites, the physical benchmark for optimized shielding at minimal weight penalty is essentially reached, as soon as the size of the filler particles drops within the nanometer range. We demonstrate that our results are in agreement with recent experimental findings and comment on the emerging potential for aeronautic and aerospace applications.