Neutron Detection with Mercuric Iodide

[摘要] Mercuric iodide is a high-density, high-Z semiconducting material useful for gamma ray detection. This makes it convertible to a thermal neutron detector by covering it with a boron rich material and detecting the 478 keV gamma rays resulting from the {sup 10}B(n, {alpha}){sup 7}Li* reaction. However, the 374 barn thermal capture cross section of {sup nat}Hg, makes the detector itself an attractive absorber, and this has been exploited previously. Since previous work indicates that there are no low-energy gamma rays emitted in coincidence with the 368 keV capture gamma from the dominant {sup 199}Hg(n, {gamma}){sup 200}Hg reaction, only the 368 keV capture gamma is seen with any efficiency a relatively thin (few mm) detector. In this paper we report preliminary measurements of neutrons via capture reactions in a bare mercuric iodide crystal and a crystal covered in {sup 10}B-loaded epoxy. The covered detector is an improvement over the bare detector because the presence of both the 478 and 368 keV gamma rays removes the ambiguity associated with the observation of only one of them. Pulse height spectra, obtained with and without lead and cadmium absorbers, showed the expected gamma rays and demonstrated that they were caused by neutrons.

[发布日期] 2003-06-17 [发布机构] Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant

[关键词] Spectra;Iodides;Cross Sections;Efficiency;Neutrons