Abstract
The usefulness of mercuric iodide (HgI 2) crystals for measuring pulses of fast neutrons was investigated. The dominant mechanisms determining the sensitivity of HgI 2 to energetic (1–15 MeV) neutrons are inelastic neutron scattering from the iodine and mercury atoms within the HgI 2 crystal and the absorption of gamma rays associated with neutron-to-gamma conversion in the shielding material. The relative role of these two mechanisms depends on the thickness of the HgI 2 crystal and the amount and type of shielding material selected for the detector assembly. Both types of excitation events create a large number of free charge carriers per scattered neutron. Under the influence of an applied bias, this free charge is collected and appears as a current pulse which is proportional to the flux in the incident neutron pulse. Calculations of the energy deposited for our source-detector configuration are also reported.
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