New scintillator design for thermal neutron detection

中子探测器在核安保和核安全领域有着广泛的应用。我们正在研究用闪烁探测器代替3He充气气管的可能性。此外，3He气体在世界范围内的短缺和许多3He管配置的显著缺陷，例如管内高压气体使传输困难，所需的高偏置电压，系统的稳定性通常较差，并且系统对麦克风很敏感。因此，一个不需要3He的闪烁体中子探测系统将是非常可取的。研究发现，在中子探测器装置中使用掺杂半导体薄膜作为闪烁体层比现有技术有一定的优势和改进。本研究的重点是在热中子探测器中开发掺杂氧化物薄膜（如zno）作为闪烁体层，用于热中子探测。这通常是通过设计和建造小型原型探测器，实验确定这些探测器的特性，主要是中子探测效率、伽马灵敏度、探测器本征背景、探测器分辨率和光收集效率，并优化设计。

Neutron detectors are used in various applications in nuclear security and nuclear safety. We are investigating the possibility of replacing 3He filled gas tubes with scintillation detectors. Furthermore, world-wide shortage of 3He gas and significant drawbacks of many 3He tube configurations, such as the high pressure gas in the tubes makes transport difficult, the high-bias voltage required, the stability of the system is generally poor, and the system is sensitive to microphonics. Therefore, a scintillator neutron detection system without the requirement of 3He will be very desirable. It has been found that using a thin film of doped semiconductor as a scintillator layer within a neutron detector apparatus provides certain benefits and improvements over existing technology.This work will focus on the development of thin film of doped oxide (eg.ZnO) as a scintillator layer within a neutron detector for thermal neutron detection. This is typically done by designing and constructing small prototype detectors, experimentally determining the characteristics of these detectors mainly neutron detection efficiency, gamma sensitivity, intrinsic detector background, detector resolution and light collection efficiency and optimizing the design.