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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Directional fast-neutron detectors

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6955914
Because neutrons are uncharged, neutron detectors must usually employ massive shielding in order to provide narrow angular resolution or to reduce the effect of backgrounds incident from different directions. If a detector is divided into multiple elements, the differences in count rate between different segments can indicate the direction of the incident neutron flux or provide corrections that cancel out the detector's response in certain directions. This report presents several calculations for this active'' collimation, which requires the use of much less shielding material than comparable passive approaches. Included are calculations for well-shielded detectors whose response is nonzero only over a narrow angular range, lightly shielded detectors whose response is zero over the entire rear hemisphere, and unshielded detectors that can accurately determine the direction of a suspected neutron source. These calculations are compared with available measurements and are in good-to-excellent agreement.
Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-36
OSTI ID:
6955914
Report Number(s):
LA-12379-MS; ON: DE93000355
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English