26
Solid-State
Thermal Neutron Detector Based on Boron-Doped a-Se Stabilized Alloy
Films--EIC
Laboratories, Inc.,
Dr.
Krishna C. Mandal, Principal Investigator, kmandal@eiclabs.com
Dr.
R. David Rauh, Business Official,
DOE
Grant No. DE-FG02-03ER83640
Amount:
$749,893
Thermal neutrons are among the most useful probes for investigating the
structural, magnetic, and acoustic properties of materials.
However, current methods of thermal neutron detection use large
cumbersome gas counters or scintillator-photomultiplier tube combinations, which
are limited by their detection efficiency, stability of response, speed of
operation, size, and cost. This
project will develop a large-area, lightweight, high-resolution, very fast,
solid state, position-sensitive thermal neutron detector, based on boron-doped
amorphous selenium stabilized alloy films [a-Se (As, Cl)].
The new detector will offer ease of operation and cost effective pricing
over existing instruments. In Phase I, high quality boron-doped (up to 32.4
atomic%) a-Se (As, Cl) alloys were synthesized in large quantities and
successful detectors were fabricated on boron-doped a-Se (As, Cl) alloy films
with 100 cm2 area and 300 µm thickness.
The feasibility of a prototype detector package based on this material as
a ‘direct read-out’ solid-state neutron detector was independently verified
at two other laboratories. Phase II
will further optimize the production of highly pure Se precursor material,
optimize alloy synthesis to obtain high quality bulk alloys with up to 38
atomic% boron doping, improve detector structure, develop optimum surface
encapsulation and packaging techniques, and evaluate detector performance.
Commercial
Applications and Other Benefits as
described by awardee: The new
thermal neutron detector should have application to homeland security, nuclear
non-proliferation, nuclear physics research, radiation safety, environmental
monitoring, structural biology, protein dynamics, the monitoring of chemical and
biological reactions in “real time,” and the characterization of polymer surfaces.
The overall market for instrumentation in these areas is in the hundreds
of millions of dollars.