Energy measurement of fast neutron fields with a Recoil Proton Telescope using active pixel sensors

Abstract

The spectrometer ATHENA (Accurate Telescope for High Energy Neutron metrology Applications), in development at the LNE-IRSN, characterizes energy and fluence of fast neutron fields. The detector is a Recoil Proton Telescope and measures neutron energies in the range of 5 to 20 MeV. The system is intended to become a primary standard for both energy and fluence measurements. The most innovative part of ATHENA is made of three CMOS pixel sensors, thinned down to 50 microns thickness, allowing an accurate tracking of the recoil. The use of CMOS sensors and a thick silicon diode increase the intrinsic efficiency of the detector by a factor of ten compared with conventional designs. In this paper, we demonstrate the ability of the detector to measure neutron energies in the range of 5 to 20 MeV. Experimental investigations, using mono-energetic neutron fields produced by the AMANDE facility, indicate a good reconstruction of neutron energies. The present design is still under development. The accuracy of measuring 5 MeV and 14 MeV neutron energies was 15% and 5%, respectively.

Development of a gaseous recoil-proton detector for neutron flux measurements between 0.2 and 2 MeV neutron energy

“…The charged protons can be easily detected, for instance, in a silicon detector. Different types of recoil-proton detector exist, depending on the type of experiment, the facility environment, the neutron energy range and the target accuracy of the measurement [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. a e-mail: paola.marini@cea.fr b Present address: CEA, DAM, DIF, 91297 Arpajon, France…”

“…The charged protons can be easily detected, for instance in a Silicon detector. Different concepts of proton-recoil detectors are available, depending on the type of measurements, the facility environment, the neutron energy range and the target accuracy of the measurement (Hassard et al, 1998, Asai et al, 2006, Babut and Gressier, 2007, Beyer et al, 2007, Donzella et al, 2010, Watanabe et al, 2011, Kovash et al, 2011, Kessedjian et al, 2012, Taforeau et al, 2014.…”

Development of a gaseous proton-recoil detector for fission cross section measurements below 1 MeV neutron energy

“…As a charged particle, proton can be easily detected, for instance in a silicon detector. Different types of proton-recoil detector exist, depending on the type of experiment, the facility environment (neutron beam vs. isotropic neutron source), the neutron energy range or the target accuracy [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. …”