SBIR Phase I: Organic Glass Scintillator Integration into 64-channel Pixelated Array

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是为政府和监管机构提供与识别特殊核材料有关的更好的信息收集工具。由于目前辐射探测材料的局限性，负责开发下一代探测器产品的物理学家往往没有商业供应商。该项目将开发低成本、坚固耐用、适合大规模部署的特殊探测器。通过利用非晶闪烁体研究和材料科学的进步，该项目将使下一代辐射探测工具的增材制造成为可能，以改善全球核安全。这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目开发了高效中子鉴别闪烁体阵列，能够耦合到64通道探测器，用于中子事件重建。有机玻璃的增材制造面临着巨大的挑战，如溶解气体的气泡成核，由于热膨胀系数的差异而引起的应力开裂，以及亚稳玻璃态的不稳定。这些失效模式中的任何一种都会导致高保真中子事件重建所需的光学完整性损失。为了制造这种类型的分段阵列，将改变有机玻璃闪烁体材料的基本配方，以调整玻璃化转变温度，并使这些材料能够铸造成刚性模具。通过这种方法，可以快速生成高度复杂的像素化阵列，同时保持高性能。开发将集中在低表面能添加剂和共价修饰的荧光团，以防止铸造和退火过程中的缺陷，以及模具材料，表面制备和热传输性能。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to provide government and regulatory bodies with better information gathering tools related to identification of special nuclear material. Due to the limitations of current radiation detection materials, physicists tasked with developing the next generation detector products often have no commercial supplier. This project will develop special detectors that are low-cost, rugged, and amenable to large deployment. By leveraging advancements in amorphous scintillator research and materials science, this project will enable additive manufacturing of the next generation of radiation detection tools to improve global nuclear security.This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project develops high-efficiency neutron discriminating scintillator arrays capable of coupling to 64-channel detectors for the purposes of neutron event reconstruction. The additive manufacturing of organic glasses has significant challenges, such as bubble nucleation of dissolved gasses, stress cracking due to differences in coefficients of thermal expansion, and destabilization of the metastable glassy state. Any of these failure modes would lead to the loss of optical integrity required for high fidelity neutron event reconstruction. To fabricate segmented arrays of this type, the base formulation of organic glass scintillator material will be altered to adjust the glass transition temperature, and enable these materials to be cast into rigid molds. Through this approach highly complex pixelated arrays can be rapidly produced while maintain high performance. Development will focus on low surface energy additives and covalent modifications of the fluorophores to prevent defects during casting and annealing, as well as mold materials, surface preparation, and thermal transport properties.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.