Development of a ceramic-insulated ball-anode element for neutron detection

To, Kentaro  ; Nakamura, Tatsuya  ; Sakasai, Kaoru  ; Soyama, Kazuhiko  ; Yamagishi, Hideshi*

A novel ceramics insulated detector element was developed for neutron measurement. The developed detector element consists of a ceramics insulator, cathode lines on the insulator, and ball-shaped anodes. The incident neutrons are usually scattered by the detector element itself because it acts as scatterer. To estimate the effects of scattering, we calculated the amount of neutrons scattered by the developed element. By the calculation results by a Monte Carlo simulation using PHITS, it is found that the developed element is effective to reduce the scattered neutrons. The number of scattered neutrons of the developed element is 40% smaller than that of polymer insulated element, which is widely used in micro-pattern element. Finally, neutron-induced signals were clearly observed using the developed detector element.