Performance of a phoswich detector composed of an inner NaI(Tl) crystal and surrounding NE102A plastic scintillator for neutron spectrometry

Watanabe, Takehito*; Arakawa, Hiroyuki*; Kajimoto, Tsuyoshi*; Iwamoto, Yosuke   ; Satoh, Daiki   ; Kunieda, Satoshi  ; Noda, Shusaku*; Shigyo, Nobuhiro*; Ishibashi, Kenji*; Nakamura, Takashi*; Haight, R. C.*

We have developed a phoswich detector for neutron spectrometry, which adopts a reversed configuration of slow- and fast-decay-time scintillators in its inner and surrounding outer regions, respectively, in the detection of recoil protons from a hydrogenous radiator. The phoswich detector consists of an inner slow, NaI(Tl) scintillator, and an outer fast, plastic scintillator. The response functions of the phoswich detector were measured for neutron energies ranging from 100 to 350 MeV. The experiment used the recoil-proton method and pulse-shape discrimination with the two-gate integration technique using a spallation neutron source at the WNR facility of the LANSCE. To evaluate the effectiveness of the phoswich configuration, full energy deposition fraction was calculated. The calculation confirmed that the phoswich detector with a reversed configuration is useful for neutron measurements.