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Poster De Conférence Année : 2015

Gadolinium-loaded plastic scintillators for thermal neutron detection and counting using compensation

Résumé

Plastic, scintillator loading with gadolinium-rich organometallic complexes shows a high potential for the deployment of efficient and cost-effective neutron detectors. Due to the low-energy photon and electron signature of thermal neutron capture by gadolinium-155 and gadolinium-157, alternative treatment to Pulse Shape Discrimination has to be proposed in order to display a trustable count rate. This paper discloses the principle of a compensation method applied to a two-scintillator system: a detection scintillator interacts with photon radiation and is loaded with gadolinium organometallic compound to become a thermal neutron absorber, while a non-gadolinium loaded compensation scintillator solely interacts with the photon part of the incident radiation. Posterior to the nonlinear smoothing of the counting signals, a hypothesis test determines whether the resulting count rate after photon response compensation falls into statistical fluctuations or provides a robust image of neutron activity. A laboratory prototype is tested under both photon and neutron irradiations, allowing us to investigate the performance of the overall compensation system in terms of neutron detection, especially with regards to a commercial helium-3 counter. The study reveals satisfactory results in terms of sensitivity and orientates future investigation toward promising axes.
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Dates et versions

hal-01195900 , version 1 (19-07-2019)

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  • HAL Id : hal-01195900 , version 1

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Jonathan Dumazert, Guillaume H. V. Bertrand, Romain Coulon, Matthieu Hamel, Vladimir Kondrasovs, et al.. Gadolinium-loaded plastic scintillators for thermal neutron detection and counting using compensation. CBRN (1st International Scientific Conference Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear - Research & Innovation), Mar 2015, Antibes - Juan-les-Pins, France. 2015. ⟨hal-01195900⟩
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