The response of a NaI(T1) crystal to monoergic neutrons

Abstract

The response of a 1 3 4 ″ × 2″ NaI(T1) cylinder to neutrons in the pulse height region between 2.5 and 7 MeV gamma energy equivalent was studied as a function of incident neutron energy for a range of neutron energies between room scattered neutrons and 1.162 MeV. The Li 7(p, n) Be 7 reaction was used as a source of neutrons since it is relatively free from high energy gamma ray background. Monoergic neutron response curves were obtained for neutron energies of 166 keV, 341 keV, and 469 keV. All other distributions were for proton energies giving rise to two neutron groups. The pulse height distributions were measured for a fixed number of counts of a shielded long counter at each neutron energy. The long counter was calibrated against Ilford C2 emulsions for the case of 1.162 and 0.698 MeV neutrons in order to obtain the neutron flux from the long counter counts. The pulse height distributions are nearly linear between 4 and 6.6 MeV. The extrapolations of these distributions intersect the gamma equivalent axis at approximately the binding energy of the last neutron in I 128.