Development of Instrumentation for Imaging Scattered Cold Neutrons

目前正在使用慢(冷)中子和X射线的小角度散射来研究材料的长程结构。用衍射法研究了局域有序。随着更强的冷中子源的出现，以及X射线源的现状，对大面积阵列的响应速度提出了更高的要求。目前的电离室线阵被限制在总CTS/S约40,000个，死区时间为10%。每像素10,000个CTS/S的比率，几乎没有串扰，将“等同于冷中子物理学的一场革命”。弯曲的探测器在拉长的导线上是不切实际的。使用具有5 mm正方形元件的5 cm正方形的半导体子阵列将允许基本上球形的阵列系统。本项目将开发快速、高效的子阵列，包括位于几片硅片上的具有100个探测器、100个放大器链和100个定标器/读出寄存器的转换器层。本研究将对系统的探测器部分进行测试，并研究整个系统的可行性。

The long range structure of materials is currently being studied using small angle scattering of slow ("cold") neutrons and X- rays. Local order is studied by diffraction. With the advent of stronger sources of cold neutrons, and the current situation with X-ray sources, there is a need for much higher speed of response in large area arrays. Present ion-chamber wire arrays are limited to about 40,000 cts/s TOTAL with 10% deadtime. Ratios of 10,000 cts/s PER PIXEL, with little crosstalk, would "amount to a revolution in cold-neutron physics". Curved detectors are impractical with stretched wires. The use of semiconductor sub- arrays, 5 cm square, with 5 mm square elements, would allow substantially spherical array systems. The present project will develop fast, efficient sub-arrays comprising a converter layer with 100 detectors, 100 amplifier chains and 100 scaler/readout registers located on a few slices of silicon. The present research will test the detector portion of the system and study the feasibility of the complete system.