Simultaneous detection of fast and thermal neutrons with a stilbene-6Li glass composite scintillator

Abstract

For simultaneous detection of fast and thermal neutrons, a composite scintillator consisting of stilbene crystal and 6Li glass was designed. Energy calibration was finished with a 152Eu γ source through Compton coincidence measurement. A 241Am-Be neutron source with polyethylene moderator was used to test it. The detection efficiency was examined through Monte Carlo simulation. The measured results show that the composite scintillator has excellent triple pulse shape discrimination performance. With the threshold of 100 keVee, figure of merits for γ-fast neutron and fast neutron-thermal neutron are 1.571 ± 0.009 and 2.376 ± 0.010 respectively. Two thermal neutron peaks emerge at 0.245 MeVee and 0.291 MeVee in the energy spectra. 79.24% of the incident thermal neutrons can be detected by 6Li glass. 39.56% of 1 MeV neutrons can be detected by stilbene.