Pulse shape discrimination characteristics of stilbene crystal, pure and 6Li loaded plastic scintillators for a high resolution coded-aperture neutron imager

Cieślak, M.J., Gamage, K.A.A. and Glover, R. (2017) Pulse shape discrimination characteristics of stilbene crystal, pure and 6Li loaded plastic scintillators for a high resolution coded-aperture neutron imager. Journal of Instrumentation, 12(7), P07023. (doi: 10.1088/1748-0221/12/07/P07023)

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Abstract

Pulse shape discrimination performances of single stilbene crystal, pure plastic and 6Li loaded plastic scintillators have been compared. Three pulse shape discrimination algorithms have been tested for each scintillator sample, assessing their quality of neutron/gamma separation. Additionally, the digital implementation feasibility of each algorithm in a real-time embedded system was evaluated. Considering the pixelated architecture of the coded-aperture imaging system, a reliable method of simultaneous multi-channel neutron/gamma discrimination was sought, accounting for the short data analysis window available for each individual channel. In this study, each scintillator sample was irradiated with a 252Cf neutron source and a bespoke digitiser system was used to collect the data allowing detailed offline examination of the sampled pulses. The figure-of-merit was utilised to compare the discrimination quality of the collected events with respect to various discrimination algorithms. Single stilbene crystal presents superior neutron/gamma separation performance when compared to the plastic scintillator samples.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Gamage, Professor Kelum
Authors: Cieślak, M.J., Gamage, K.A.A., and Glover, R.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering
Journal Name:Journal of Instrumentation
Publisher:Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.
ISSN:1748-0221
ISSN (Online):1748-0221
Published Online:25 July 2017
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2017 The Authors
First Published:First published in Journal of Instrumentation 12(7):P07023
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

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