High efficiency neutron sensitive amorphous silicon pixel detectors

Conference · Mon Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1994 · IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States)

OSTI ID:6816052

Mireshghi, A; Cho, G; Drewery, J S; Hong, W S; Jing, T; Lee, H; Kaplan, S N; Perez-Mendez, V ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (United States)

A multi-layer a-Si:H based thermal neutron detector was designed, fabricated and simulated by Monte Carlo method. The detector consists of two a-Si:H pin detectors prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and interfaced with coated layers of Gd, as a thermal neutron converter. Simulation results indicate that a detector consisting of 2 Gd films with thicknesses of 2 and 4 [mu]m, sandwiched properly with two layers of sufficiently thick ([approximately]30[mu]m) amorphous silicon diodes, has the optimum parameters. The detectors have an intrinsic efficiency of about 42% at a threshold setting of 7000 electrons, with an expected average signal size of [approximately]12,000 electrons which is well above the noise. This efficiency will be further increased to nearly 63%, if the authors use Gd with 50% enrichment in [sup 157]Gd. The authors can fabricate position sensitive detectors with spatial resolution of 30 [mu]m with gamma sensitivity of [approximately]1 [times] 10[sup [minus]5]. These detectors are highly radiation resistant and are good candidates for use in various application, where high efficiency, high resolution, gamma insensitive position sensitive neutron detectors are needed.

• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00098
• OSTI ID: 6816052
• Report Number(s): CONF-931051--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States) Journal Volume: 41:4Pt1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

440101* -- Radiation Instrumentation-- General Detectors or Monitors & Radiometric Instruments
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DESIGN
DETECTION
EFFICIENCY
ELEMENTS
FABRICATION
GADOLINIUM
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
METALS
NEUTRON DETECTION
NEUTRON DETECTORS
POSITION SENSITIVE DETECTORS
QUANTUM EFFICIENCY
RADIATION DETECTION
RADIATION DETECTORS
RARE EARTHS
SEMICONDUCTOR DETECTORS
SI SEMICONDUCTOR DETECTORS
SIMULATION