Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-7-2023
Abstract
Additive manufacturing techniques enable a wide range of possibilities for novel radiation detectors spanning simple to highly complex geometries, multi-material composites, and metamaterials that are either impossible or cost prohibitive to produce using conventional methods. The present work identifies a set of promising formulations of photocurable scintillator resins capable of neutron-gamma pulse shape discrimination (PSD) to support the additive manufacturing of fast neutron detectors. The development of these resins utilizes a step-by-step, trial-and-error approach to identify different monomer and cross-linker combinations that meet the requirements for 3D printing followed by a 2-level factorial parameter study to optimize the radiation detection performance, including light yield, PSD, optical clarity, and hardness. The formulations resulted in hard, clear, PSD-capable plastic scintillators that were cured solid within 10 s using 405 nm light. The best-performing scintillator produced a light yield 83% of EJ-276 and a PSD figure of merit equaling 1.28 at 450–550 keVee.
Source Publication
Journal of Nuclear Engineering
Recommended Citation
Frandsen, B. G., Febbraro, M., Ruland, T., Stephens, T. W., Hausladen, P. A., Manfredi, J. J., & Bevins, J. E. (2023). Fast-, Light-Cured Scintillating Plastic for 3D-Printing Applications. Journal of Nuclear Engineering, 4(1), 241–257. https://doi.org/10.3390/jne4010019
Included in
Manufacturing Commons, Nuclear Engineering Commons, Other Materials Science and Engineering Commons
Comments
© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
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Funding note: This research was supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency under grant HDTRA1136911, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics, under Award Number DE-AC05-00OR22725, and the ORNL Laboratory Directed Research Development Program.