Design and test of an albedo personal neutron dosemeter based on PADC detectors

Abstract

Albedo dosemeters, usually based on thermo-luminescence detectors, have been frequently employed in personal neutron dosimetry. Their main advantages are the high sensitivity and the reduced angular dependence, whilst the disadvantages are the sensitivity to photons and the significant energy dependence of the response, which drops dramatically above 0.1 MeV. The present paper proposes an albedo dosemeter based on a planar PADC coupled with a 10B converter. This dosemeter shows good potentials in terms of photon insensitivity, limited angular dependence and high neutron sensitivity. Its use coupled with a dosemeter sensitive in the MeV region, should result in promising dosimetric performances. The response of the PADC based albedo dosemeter was characterized through irradiations in reference neutron fields of 241Am-Be, 252Cf and 252Cf(D 2O) and Monte Carlo simulations with the code MCNP-4C. The paper presents the results of the experimental and computational studies and outlines the relevant dosimetric performance of the new albedo dosemeter.