A multichannel spectrometer for detecting γ rays in a wide range of time intervals during pulse neutron irradiation

Abstract

A versatile spectrometer has been developed for measuring the nuclear radiation spectrum in discrete time intervals. The design and operating principle of the spectrometer are described. Since the main logical part is based on a field programmable gate array, time intervals may be tuned in a wide range without changing the spectrometer hardware. The test experiments have demonstrated the spectrometer applicability for measuring the amplitude and timing parameters of the γ response when an analyzed sample is irradiated with a pulsed neutron flux. This device can be used to solve many problems of nondestructive testing, e.g., spectrometric neutron logging, detection of explosives, identification and characterization of fissile materials.