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Glass Scintillator for Neutron Detection
Author(s) -
BISHAY ADLI M.
Publication year - 1961
Publication title -
journal of the american ceramic society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.9
H-Index - 196
eISSN - 1551-2916
pISSN - 0002-7820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1151-2916.1961.tb15366.x
Subject(s) - scintillator , analytical chemistry (journal) , cerium , materials science , photomultiplier , neutron detection , neutron , optics , chemistry , detector , nuclear physics , physics , chromatography , metallurgy
A glass scintillator which can be used as one of the main components of a slow‐neutron time‐of‐flight spectrometer has been developed. This sodium aluminoborate glass containing 73 mole % B 2 O 3 and 8.0 mole % Ce was melted under highly reducing conditions in a series of cerium‐activated very high boron‐containing glasses. This glass is water white with very high light transmittance for wave lengths greater than 3800 a. u. It has a neutron‐detection efficiency which is 25 to 30% greater than any other known glass scintillator in the energy range 10 2 to 10 4 e.v. and is considerably better than any other type of detector. It was found that the neutron pulse height increases with increasing cerium content up to a maximum and then decreases with further increases in the cerium content. The molar content of cerium required to obtain a maximum pulse height for each B 2 O 3 concentration increases linearly with the increase in the B 2 O 3 content. However, the maximum pulse height decreases gradually with the B 2 O 3 content from 17.0 arbitrary units at 54.5 mole % to 6.7 at 73.4 mole %. This lower pulse height is still considerably above the photomultiplier noise at room temperature.