Wednesday, November 5, 2014

A multi-detector, digitizer based neutron depth profiling device for characterizing thin film materials

P. L. Mulligan, L. R. Cao,a) and D. Turkoglu 

Nuclear Engineering Program, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
 
Abstract
Neutron depth profiling (NDP) is a mature, nondestructive technique used to characterize the concentration of certain light isotopes in a material as a function of depth by measuring the residual energy of charged particles in neutron induced reactions. Historically, NDP has been performed using a single detector, resulting in low intrinsic detection efficiency, and limiting the technique largely to high flux research reactors. In this work, we describe a new NDP instrument design with higher detection efficiency by way of spectrum summing across multiple detectors. Such a design is capable of acquiring a statistically significant charged particle spectrum at facilities limited in neutron flux and operation time.
 
Click to view complete article
 
Subscribe to eNewsTronix