New scintillator design for thermal neutron detection

Neutron detectors are used in various applications in nuclear security and nuclear safety. We are investigating the possibility of replacing 3He filled gas tubes with scintillation detectors. Furthermore, world-wide shortage of 3He gas and significant drawbacks of many 3He tube configurations, such as the high pressure gas in the tubes makes transport difficult, the high-bias voltage required, the stability of the system is generally poor, and the system is sensitive to microphonics. Therefore, a scintillator neutron detection system without the requirement of 3He will be very desirable. It has been found that using a thin film of doped semiconductor as a scintillator layer within a neutron detector apparatus provides certain benefits and improvements over existing technology.
This work will focus on the development of thin film of doped oxide (eg.ZnO) as a scintillator layer within a neutron detector for thermal neutron detection. This is typically done by designing and constructing small prototype detectors, experimentally determining the characteristics of these detectors mainly neutron detection efficiency, gamma sensitivity, intrinsic detector background, detector resolution and light collection efficiency and optimizing the design.