Advances in imaging fission neutrons with a neutron scatter camera

Marleau, Peter; Brennan, James S.; Krenz, Kevin D.; Mascarenhas, Nicholas; Mrowka, Stanley

doi:10.1109/nssmic.2007.4436310

Cited by 16 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Other groups have also used liquid scintillators with pulse shape discrimination of neutrons from gammas [7,8]. In all these publications, the direction of the incident neutron is obtained by estimating the energy deposited in the first scattering event by the integrated scintillation light and the subsequent energy of the scattered neutron by time of flight between two separated detectors.…”

Section: Prior Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Directional stand-off detection of fast neutrons and gammas using angular scattering distributions

Vanier

Diószegi

Salwen

et al. 2009

2009 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record (NSS/MIC)

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Abstract-We have investigated the response of a Double Scatter Neutron Spectrometer (DSNS) for sources at long distances (>200 meters). We find that an alternative method for analyzing double scatter data avoids some uncertainties introduced by amplitude measurements in plastic scintillators. Time of flight is used to discriminate between gamma and neutron events, and the kinematic distributions of scattering angles are assumed to apply. Non-relativistic neutrons are most likely to scatter at 45°, while gammas with energies greater than 2 MeV are most likely to be forward scattered. The distribution of scattering angles of fission neutrons arriving from a distant point source generates a 45° cone, which can be back-projected to give the source direction. At the same time, the distribution of Compton-scattered gammas has a maximum in the forward direction, and can be made narrower by selecting events that deposit minimal energy in the first scattering event. We have further determined that the shape of spontaneous fission neutron spectra at ranges >110 m is still significantly different from the cosmic ray background.

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Section: Prior Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Directional stand-off detection of fast neutrons and gammas using angular scattering distributions

Vanier

Diószegi

Salwen

et al. 2009

2009 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record (NSS/MIC)

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“…Therefore, based on counting statistics, the SNR at the input is described by: (6) where N is the number of incident neutrons and σ N is their standard deviation. Clearly, the input SNR, also known as the photon or quantum noise, is solely determined by the strength of the source or the exposure time and is independent of the imaging device.…”

Section: Physical Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, to protect the digital camera from incident radiation and possible damage, the aluminum light tight box is constructed with a front-surface aluminized and doped with 6 Li mirror positioned at a 45° angle with respect to the beam.…”

Section: Neutron Imaging Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Noise evaluation of a digital neutron imaging device

Lewandowski¹,

Cao²,

Turkoglu³

2012

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A:

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Radiography consists of methods aimed at providing a nondestructive mean of imaging internal structures and composition of matter by recording the transmitted intensity of a beam of radiation. The enormous popularity of X-ray imaging in medicine has driven an effort in X-ray radiography aimed at standardizing and regulating the acquisition of X-ray radiographs and quantifying image quality across different X-ray platforms. However, a similar discussion has not been observed in neutron radiography (NR), a type of imaging technique that uses neutrons as a source of radiation. Currently, the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) is solely used to measure the quality of NR systems. However, MTF is a measure of contrast only and does not account for noise.The purpose of this research was to take additional metrics including the Noise Power Spectrum (NPS) and the Detective Quantum Efficiency (DQE) that are commonly used in X-ray imaging, apply them to NR, and evaluate the impact of noise. An imaging system was developed using a low-cost digital camera, modified with open source software to enhance imaging capabilities. The system allowed capturing images of a neutron beam produced by the OSU Research Reactor at various exposure times. The produced images were analyzed with the help of MATLAB to establish MTF, NPS, and DQE measurements. The results confirmed the initial hypothesis by showing that although a system may have very high contrast, it may suffer from noise, which iii deteriorates the system's ability to detect fine details. The results and discussion presented here have been published in a journal in hope to inform the NR community of the nuisances associated with noise and suggest that NPS and DQE are used to complement MTF in an attempt to describe the quality of neutron imaging devices.iv Acknowledgments

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“…By combining imaging and spectroscopy capabilities, the method can be applied in a variety of fields, including solar and atmospheric physics, radiation therapy and nuclear materials monitoring, especially the potential application for Special Nuclear Material identification [1,2,4]. The technology of fast neutron double scatter imaging, also known as the neutron scatter camera or the fast neutron imaging telescope, has been proposed since the early 1980 s, but it has been under development since 2006 mainly in the USA [1][2][3][4][5]. In this case, neutron detection relies on double elastic neutron-proton (n-p) scattering in liquid scintillator.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%