Energy response of a full-energy-absorption neutron spectrometer using boron-loaded liquid scintillator BC-523

Neutron spectroscopy by thermalization light yield measurement in a composite heterogeneous scintillator

“…Nevertheless, the continuum extending to low light output is largely suppressed and a peak-like structure can be observed, unlike the spectra measured in non-capture-gated hydrogen-based organic scintillators in the same energy region [18]. The maximum light output corresponds to complete transfer in a single collision with a hydrogen nucleus, while multiple collisions with hydrogen and carbon nuclei generate less light output due to the nonlinear quenching factor of the nuclear recoils [3,19,23]. Furthermore, a fraction of the neutrons are captured before their kinetic energy is fully dissipated in collisions, which can also account for a fraction of the peak broadening.…”

“…Capture-gated neutron detection has shown great promise in neutron spectroscopy [1][2][3][4] due to the quasi-full energy deposition prior to neutron capture and the resulting reduced continuum in the detector response function. The capability to perform both thermal neutron detection and fast neutron spectroscopy in a single detector makes the capture-gated detection attractive in various applications.…”

Fast neutron detection with a segmented spectrometer

“…The FaNS-1 spectrometer uses 3 He in proportional counters as the capture agent although Gd [35] is a common agent and other efforts have focused on the use of 10 B [36,37] and 6 Li [38,39]. 3 He has two important advantages in that the reaction produces two charged particles in the final state rather than gamma rays, thus making it easy to identify, and it has a large thermal neutron cross section.…”

“…For a single scintillator detector, the degree of multiple scattering is not known and thus reconstructing the kinetic energy of a stopped neutron leads to poor energy resolution [36]. This problem can be mitigated by separating the occurrence of multiple scatters into separate segments, as shown in Fig.…”

A telescope detection system for direct and high resolution spectrometry of intense neutron fields

“…Recoil telescopes can provide simple response functions but usually with low neutron detection efficiency, typically <0.01%. Another approach that is used to achieve a simple response function is the capture-gated neutron spectrometer (Aleksan et al, 1989;Kamykowski, 1992;Aoyama et al, 1993;Bart Czirr, 1994;Bertin et al, 1994). This is a recoil detector spectrometer, usually a liquid or plastic scintillator, which selects events in which neutrons transfer all of their energy by elastic and inelastic scattering within the scintillator.…”