Application of the microhole and strip plate detector for neutron detection

• Autor(a) principal: Veloso, J. F. C. A.
• Data de Publicação: 2004
• Outros Autores: Amaro, F., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Mir, J. A., Derbyshire, G. E., Stephenson, R., Rhodes, N. J., Schooneveld, E. M.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/12893; https://doi.org/10.1109/TNS.2004.835620

We introduce the microhole and strip plate (MHSP) detector as a micropattern detector for the detection of thermal and epithermal neutrons. Detection sensitivity is obtained by filling these detectors with 3He at high pressures. We propose the use of argon-xenon penning mixtures as the stopping gas as opposed to the usual carbon based stopping gases. These argon-xenon mixtures provide suitable gas gains for the high pressure/high resolution neutron detector applications. With these mixtures it is possible to obtain a sealed detector with only rare-gas filling which is simple to purify and not subject to ageing. An MHSP gas detector filled with a 3-bar argon/50-mbar xenon/6-bar helium mixture can achieve gains above 2×103. This mixture allows neutron detection efficiencies of about 70% at 1 Å for a 2.5-cm thick absorption region and intrinsic position resolution (full-width at half-maximum) of about 1.8 mm. The sensitivity to γ-rays of the present mixture will be the same when compared to that of 2.6-bar CF4