Organic scintillators are widely used for fast neutron detection and spectroscopy. Several effects complicate the interpretation of results from detectors based upon these materials. First, fast neutrons will often leave a detector before depositing all of their energy within it. Second, fast neutrons will typically scatter several times within a detector, and there is a non-proportional relationship between the energy of, and the scintillation light produced by, each individual scatter; therefore, there is not a deterministic relationship between the scintillation light observed and the neutron energy deposited. Here we demonstrate a hardware technique for reducing both of these effects. Use of a segmented detector allows for the event-by-event correction of the light yield non-proportionality and for the preferential selection of events with near-complete energy deposition, since these will typically have high segment multiplicities.
@article{arxiv.0908.1206,
title = {Improved Fast Neutron Spectroscopy via Detector Segmentation},
author = {N. S. Bowden and P. Marleau and J. T. Steele and S. Mrowka and G. Aigeldinger and W. Mengesha},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0908.1206},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A