The All Boron Carbide Diode Neutron Detector: Experiment and Modeling Approach
- College of Engineering, UNL, Lincoln, Nebraska (United States)
- Physics and Astronomy, Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincoln, Nebraska (United States)
Boron carbide diode detectors, fabricated from two different polytypes of semiconducting boron carbide, will detect neutrons in reasonable agreement with theoretical expectations. The performance of the all boron carbide neutron detector differs, as expected, from devices where a boron rich neutron capture layer is distinct from the diode charge collection region (i.e. a conversion layer solid state detector). Diodes were fabricated from natural abundance boron (20% {sup 10}B and 80% {sup 11}B.) directly on the metal substrates and metal contacts applied to the films as grown. The total boron depth was on the order of 2 microns. This is clearly not a conversion-layer configuration. The diodes were exposed to thermal neutrons generated from a paraffin moderated plutonium-beryllium source in moderated and un-moderated, as well as shielded and unshielded experimental configurations, where the expected energy peaks at at 2.31 MeV and 2.8 MeV were clearly observed, albeit with some incomplete charge collection typical of thinner diode structures. The results are compared with other boron based thin film detectors and literature models. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- Materials Research Society, 506 Keystone Drive, Warrendale, PA, 15086-7573 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21091569
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Symposium on Structural and Refractory Materials for Fusion and Fission Technologies, Boston, MA (United States), 28-30 Nov 2006; Other Information: Country of input: France; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the Symposium on Structural and Refractory Materials for Fusion and Fission Technologies, by Aktaa, J. [ed. Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH, Institute for Materials Research II, Postfach 3640, 76021 Karlsruhe (Germany)]; Samaras, M. [ed. Paul Scherrer Institute, Nuclear Energy and Safety, CH-5232 Villigen PSI (Switzerland)]; Serrano de Caro, M. [ed. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Chemical Biology and Nuclear Science Division, L-632, P.O. Box 808, Livermore, CA 94550 (United States)]; Victoria, M. [ed. Polytechnic University of Madrid, Instituto de Fusion Nuclear, J. Gutierrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid (Spain)]; Wirth, B. [ed. University of California-Berkeley, Nuclear Engineering Dept., Berkeley, CA 94720-1730 (United States)], v. 981E, 112 pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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