Novel instrument system for discriminating secondary particles in high-spatial-resolution neutron detection

Yamagishi, Hideshi; Nakamura, Tatsuya; Soyama, Kazuhiko; Masaoka, Sei; Aizawa, Kazuya

Review of Scientific Instruments, 75(7), p.2340 - 2345, 2004/07

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1765754

A new instrument system with the capability of secondary-particle discrimination (InSPaD) was studied for the development of two-dimensional neutron detectors (2D-ND) filled with helium-3 gas and with high spatial resolution. The InSPaD can discriminate between the tracks of a proton and a triton created in the nuclear reaction He(,) by simply setting the level of discriminators appropriately in each signal channel, and the system exhibits a high spatial resolution, high counting rate, low background, and stability. The simulations of the 2D-ND equipped with the InSPaD revealed spatial resolutions of 0.46 mm in full width at half maximum for a 10% mixture of CH with helium-3 at 0.3 MPa. The results of neutron-detection experiments using a microstrip gas chamber, including the range of the secondary particles and the pulse-height distribution, agreed well with the simulated results, indicating the feasibility of the InSPaD.