A gas-based neutron imaging detector with individual read-outs

摘要

A gas-based neutron imaging detector with individual read-outs with high spatial and temporal resolutions was developed for thermal neutron scattering experiments. The compact detector comprises a gas vessel that can withstand 11 atm, which feeds 541 signal lines to multichannel signal amplifier boards located close by to ensure a high signal-to-noise ratio and fast detector response. The performances of prototype detectors employing multiwire (MW) and microstrip (MS) detector heads were evaluated using a collimated cold-neutron beam. The MW detector system, which has a sensitive area of 40 x 40 mm~2 with a wire pitch of 1 mm in each dimension (40 x 2 channels of read-outs), exhibited an average spatial resolution of 1.5mm for 6.8-atm helium with 1.2-atm CF_4. The MS detector system, which has a sensitive area of 51 x 51 mm~2 with a strip pitch of 0.4 mm in each dimension (128 x 2 channels of read-outs), exhibited an average spatial resolution of 1.1 mm under the same gas conditions. The developed detector system exhibited position sensitivity that was linear to within 1% and a pulse-pair resolution of less than 1 μs.