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Design of a compact long counter with an improved response using multiple point-like thermal neutron counters

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Abstract

A long counter with multiple point-like thermal neutron counters positioned in a cylindrical neutron moderator was investigated to improve the performance of the long counter, including flatter fluence response in a wider neutron energy range and also the compactness. The summation of the weighted counts of each thermal neutron counter yields the response of the long counter. In this study, silicon carbide (SiC) coated with 6LiF convertor was used as the thermal neutron counter. In a further effort to balance the performance and structural complexity of long counters with multiple thermal neutron counters, the number and positions of these counters were first studied and optimized. As a result, the long counter with four specially positioned SiC counters showed the best performance. Besides, we also implemented a copper annular into the moderator to compensate for the long counter’s response above a few MeV. The response function was relatively flat in the energy range from 10 eV to 25 MeV, with a relative standard deviation of approximately 1.78%. In addition, the proposed detector can evaluate the neutron energy, allowing it to monitor neutron fluence and neutron energy simultaneously.

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Data Availability Statement

This manuscript has associated data in a data repository. [Authors’ comment: Data will be made available upon reasonable request.]

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Acknowledgements

This work was finically supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 12105144), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2022M721659), the Primary Research and Development Plan of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BE2022846), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. NC2022006), and the Foundation of Graduate Innovation Center in NUAA (Grant No. xcxjh20220607).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China

    Pengxiang Wang, Zhimeng Hu, Xucheng Ma, Pin Gong & Xiaobin Tang

  2. Key Laboratory of Nuclear Technology Application and Radiation Protection in Astronautics, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 211106, China

    Zhimeng Hu, Pin Gong & Xiaobin Tang

  3. Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China

    Guoqiang Zhong

  4. Department of Physics, University of Milan-Bicocca, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Giuseppe Gorini

  5. Nuclear and Radiation Safety Center, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Beijing, 100082, China

    Baolong Chen

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  1. Pengxiang Wang
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Correspondence to Zhimeng Hu or Xiaobin Tang.

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Wang, P., Hu, Z., Ma, X. et al. Design of a compact long counter with an improved response using multiple point-like thermal neutron counters. Eur. Phys. J. Plus 138, 419 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-04071-5

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