6Li foil thermal neutron detector
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
In this paper we report on the design of a multilayer thermal neutron detector based on {sup 6}Li reactive foil and thin film plastic scintillators. The {sup 6}Li foils have about twice the intrinsic efficiency of {sup 10}B films and about four times higher light output due to a unique combination of high energy of reaction particles, low self absorption, and low ionization density of tritons. The design configuration provides for double sided readout of the lithium foil resulting in a doubling of the efficiency relative to a classical reactive film detector and generating a pulse height distribution with a valley between neutron and gamma signals similar to {sup 3}He tubes. The tens of microns thickness of plastic scintillator limits the energy deposited by gamma rays, which provides the necessary neutron/gamma discrimination. We used MCNPX to model a multilayer Li foil detector design and compared it with the standard HLNCC-II (18 {sup 3}He tubes operated at 4 atm). The preliminary results of the {sup 6}Li configuration show higher efficiency and one third of the die-away time. These properties, combined with the very short dead time of the plastic scintillator, offer the potential of a very high performance detector.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1019548
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-10-04042; LA-UR-10-4042; TRN: US1103664
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: INMM 51st Annual Meeting ; July 11, 2010 ; Baltimore, MD
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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