Enabling Ga2O3’s neutron detection capability with boron doping and conversion layer

Abstract

There is a growing necessity to develop revolutionary neutron detectors for nuclear energy, nuclear physics, medical physics, astrophysics, biological imaging, nonproliferation, and national security. The often-used Helium-3 (He-3) neutron detector is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain due to He-3 shortages. As an emerging oxide semiconductor material, Ga2O3 exhibits excellent physical properties. These physical merits enable Ga2O3’s potential as a high-performance semiconductor neutron detector for extreme condition applications. Here, two approaches are explored, i.e., applying an exterior conversion layer of boron-10 (B-10) on Ga2O3 and directly doping B-10 into Ga2O3 to demonstrate Ga2O3’s capability for neutron detection. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we show the distinct difference in neutron detection efficiency of Ga2O3 when applying direct doping of B-10 into Ga2O3 vs applying a uniform B-10 conversion layer on top of Ga2O3. Our results exhibit that the theoretically predicted maximum doping level of B-10 in Ga2O3 does not lead to the same detection efficiency as that of a simple B-10 conversion layer when detecting 480 keV gammas. Except for the most thermalized neutrons at 0.01 eV, direct doping simulations are not able to achieve comparable results to that of the conversion layer method.