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Neutron Detection with Heavily Lithium-Doped, Amorphous Selenium Solid-State Detector--EIC Laboratories, Inc., 111 Downey Street, Norwood, MA  02062-2612; 781-769-9450

Dr. Krishna C. Mandal, Principal Investigator

Dr. R. David Rauth, Business Official

DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-00ER82993

Amount:  $100,000

 

Federal research and development institutions including national laboratories, the nuclear power industry, materials scientists, and the radiation safety community have a strong need for high performance thermal neutron detectors.  Current methods of thermal neutron detection by large cumbersome gas counters or scintillator-photomultiplier tube combinations are limited by their detection efficiency, stability of response, speed of operation, and physical size.  EIC plans to construct a large-area, lightweight, high-resolution, and very fast position sensitive thermal neutron detector based on a heavily Li-doped a-Se plate. The proposed detector would offer high detection efficiency over existing instruments, and would be inexpensive for industrial mass production.  The Phase I project will focus on the development and optimization of heavily Li-doped a-Se alloy materials, detector fabrication, and performance evaluation by radiation testing.  The Phase I research will establish the basic feasibility studies followed by various characterizations to reach optimum detector performance.

 

Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee:  The resulting detectors will be compact, highly sensitive and rugged.  The fabricated detectors will be useful for many applications in national nuclear physics laboratories.  The developed detectors will find widespread use in non-proliferation of special materials, radiation safety, structural characterization in materials research, protein dynamics, monitoring chemical and biological reactions in “real time,” and in characterizing polymer surfaces.