Sensitive and transportable gadolinium-core plastic scintillator sphere for neutron detection and counting - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment Année : 2016

Sensitive and transportable gadolinium-core plastic scintillator sphere for neutron detection and counting

Résumé

Neutron detection forms a critical branch of nuclear-related issues, currently driven by the search for competitive alternative technologies to neutron counters based on the helium-3 isotope. The deployment of plastic scintillators shows a high potential for efficient detectors, safer and more reliable than liquids, more easily scalable and cost-effective than inorganic. In the meantime, natural gadolinium, through its 155 and mostly 157 isotopes, presents an exceptionally high interaction probability with thermal neutrons. This paper introduces a dual system including a metal gadolinium core inserted at the center of a high-scale plastic scintillator sphere. Incident fast neutrons are thermalized by the scintillator shell and then may be captured with a significant probability by gadolinium 155 and 157 nuclei in the core. The deposition of a sufficient fraction of the capture high-energy prompt gamma signature inside the scintillator shell will then allow discrimination from background radiations by energy threshold, and therefore neutron detection. The scaling of the system with the Monte Carlo MCNPX2.7 code was carried out according to a tradeoff between the moderation of incident fast neutrons and the probability of slow neutron capture by a moderate-cost metal gadolinium core. Based on the parameters extracted from simulation, a first laboratory prototype for the assessment of the detection method principle has been synthetized. The robustness and sensitivity of the neutron detection principle are then assessed by counting measurement experiments. Experimental results confirm the potential for a stable, highly sensitive, transportable and cost-efficient neutron detector and orientate future investigation toward promising axes.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
article_JonathanDumazert_Nuclear Instruments 2016_preprint (1).pdf (579.47 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)

Dates et versions

hal-01615195 , version 1 (29-04-2022)

Identifiants

Citer

Jonathan Dumazert, Romain Coulon, Frédérick Carrel, Gwenolé Corre, Stéphane Normand, et al.. Sensitive and transportable gadolinium-core plastic scintillator sphere for neutron detection and counting. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 2016, 828, pp.181 - 190. ⟨10.1016/j.nima.2016.05.054⟩. ⟨hal-01615195⟩
130 Consultations
52 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More