Abstract
In a neutron generator, deuterium ions are accelerated towards a tritium-loaded target. From the nuclear reaction that may result from their interaction, an alpha particle and a neutron are emitted back-to-back. The neutron escaping the chamber can be used for tomography of a high-Z material, while its trajectory can be better calculated if the trajectory of the relative alpha, much easier to detect, is known. This technique is called Associated Particle Imaging (API). Existing API systems, available commercially, have several limitations. A semiconductor-based API detector placed inside the vacuum chamber is believed to outperform all previous families of API detectors. In the past years, we have shown how silicon can withstand the alpha fluence expected during the neutron generator lifetime. As such, it will be the semiconductor material of choice for our API detector. However, looking forward to an upgrade, we want to evaluate the radiation hardness against alphas of diamond sensors, which is another kind of detector that is routinely fabricated at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). We exposed a single channel diamond sensor, mounted on the same set-up used for the irradiation tests on silicon diodes, to the same radioactive source used during the silicon irradiation: a 5 MeV alpha flux generated by an 241Am radioactive source. During irradiation, the diode was kept biased and waveforms were acquired from time to time at positive and negative voltages, while data analysis was performed off-line.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | 2021 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference Record, NSS/MIC 2021 and 28th International Symposium on Room-Temperature Semiconductor Detectors, RTSD 2022 |
| Editors | Hideki Tomita, Tatsuya Nakamura |
| Publisher | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781665421133 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2021 |
| Event | 2021 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, NSS/MIC 2021 - Virtual, Yokohama, Japan Duration: Oct 16 2021 → Oct 23 2021 |
Publication series
| Name | 2021 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference Record, NSS/MIC 2021 and 28th International Symposium on Room-Temperature Semiconductor Detectors, RTSD 2022 |
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Conference
| Conference | 2021 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, NSS/MIC 2021 |
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| Country/Territory | Japan |
| City | Virtual, Yokohama |
| Period | 10/16/21 → 10/23/21 |
Funding
Manuscript received December 15th, 2021. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant DESC0012704 and by the United States National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research & Development. This research used resources of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, which is a U.S. DOE Office of Science Facility, at Brookhaven National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-SC0012704.