10.1016/j.nima.2018.08.016">
 

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2018

Abstract

With the increasing cost and decreasing availability of 3He, there have been many efforts to find alternative neutron detection materials. Lithium calcium aluminum fluoride (LiCAF) enriched to 95% 6Li doped with europium was evaluated here as a replacement material for 3He. Wafers 0.5 cm thick, consisting of LiCAF crystals in a rubberized matrix, were embedded with wavelength shifting fibers (WSF) and mated to silicon photo-multipliers (SiPMs) to measure the photon response in a flux of neutrons from a DD neutron generator. Excellent discrimination was realized between neutrons and gammas, and both pulse-height discrimination and pulse-shape analysis were explored. A Figure of Merit (FoM) of 1.03 was achieved. By applying pulse-shape analysis, a simple neutron count output was generated by utilizing a low-pass filter to suppress fast pulses from the SiPM output and subsequently applying a threshold to the remaining signal. Custom electronics were built to bias the SiPMs, then amplify, filter, discriminate, and digitize the LiCAF/WSF scintillation photons, resulting in a digital pulse that can easily be counted with any microcontroller or field programmable gate array. A significant advantage of LiCAF is that it can be fabricated into any shape/size (when embedded in a rubberized matrix), and the light output and transparency is sufficient to allow for thicker scintillators which enable detection of both thermal and epithermal neutrons. This work demonstrated that Eu:LiCAF is capable of discriminating gammas from neutrons and is a potential replacement material for 3He, especially for nuclear security applications and neutron spectroscopy.

Comments

This record on AFIT Scholar furnishes the Elsevier Open Manuscript version of the article.

© 2018 published by Elsevier. The manuscript is made available under the Elsevier user license.

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Shared in accordance with guidelines found at Sherpa Services for this source journal. [Submitted version pathway]

Funding note: This work was supported at the Air Force Institute of Technology by the 359 Defense Threat Reduction Agency (HDTRA17-245-26).

Source Publication

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment

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