Investigation of thermal neutron/gamma discrimination capability of a CLYC Scintillator with a SiPM in a mixed field of 241Am-Be neutron source: Pulse shape discrimination using constant fraction time over threshold (CF-TOT) and cumulative charge ratio (CCR)

YÜCEL H., KARANFİL E. C., Karaman M. C., Tuzel O., Dagistan Z., Hanci K. O., ...Daha Fazla

RADIATION MEASUREMENTS, cilt.189, 2025 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 189
  • Basım Tarihi: 2025
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.radmeas.2025.107540
  • Dergi Adı: RADIATION MEASUREMENTS
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Chemical Abstracts Core, Compendex, INSPEC
  • Ankara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

In this study, neutron detection and neutron/gamma discrimination capability of a 99 % 6Li enriched CLYC (Cs2LiYCl6:Ce) scintillator detector module incorporating a built-in microcontroller-based MCA featuring analog-signal processing for pulse shape discrimination method is investigated. This miniature detector module has a small-sized 15 x 15 x 25 mm3 CLYC crystal, optically coupled with Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM). It uses a temperature compensated bias supply. The analog-signal processing components of this compact detector system implement the constant fraction time over threshold (CF-TOT) and cumulative charge ratio (CCR) methods for the pulse shape discrimination. The neutron/gamma measurements were performed in a thermalized neutron field having a thermal neutron flux of 2.11 x 103 n center dot cm-2 center dot s-1 of an 241Am-Be neutron source. The obtained pulse-height spectra is stored in a 4096 channels ADC/MCA. From the observed spectra, noise and low-energy events are lying quite far from neutron and gamma pulses. The figure of merit (FoM) criteria for the performance of PSD method was estimated to be 1.274. This means that the presently developed compact neutron detector system based on CLYC scintillation crystal has a good thermal neutron/gamma discrimination capability although there are high energy gamma-ray in the field. Thus, this compact device can be a versatile device for measuring thermal neutron fluxes in space-constrained or portable applications such as small ducts or openings. Moreover, it has a potential use for the detection of neutrons in the mixed fields from micro-modular (MMR) reactors or small modular reactor (SMR) environments.