Development of a fast neutron spectrometer composed of silicon-SSD and position-sensitive proportional counters

A new fast neutron spectrometer has been developed. The spectrometer is composed of a silicon surface barrier detector and three position-sensitive proportional counters with methane gas working as counting gas and a radiator. A collimated incident neutron interacts with a hydrogen atom in the methane gas to generate a recoil proton. The position information on the path of the recoil proton obtained from the three position-sensitive proportional counters gives the recoil angle. In the meanwhile, the energy of the recoil protons is measured with the three proportional counters and the silicon surface barrier detector. The characteristics of the spectrometer were evaluated with a monoenergetic neutron beam. The best energy resolution was 1.8% for 5.0 MeV neutrons.     

Construction of 144, 565 keV and 5.0 MeV monoenergetic neutron calibration fields at JAERI

Monoenergetic neutron calibration fields of 144, 565 keV and 5.0 MeV have been developed at the Facility of Radiation Standards of JAERI using a 4 MV Pelletron accelerator. The 7Li(p,n)7Be and 2H(d,n)3He reactions are employed for neutron production. The neutron energy was measured by the time-of-flight method with a liquid scintillation detector and calculated with the MCNP-ANT code. A long counter is employed as a neutron monitor because of the flat response. The monitor is set up where the influence of inscattered neutrons from devices and their supporting materials at a calibration point is as small as possible. The calibration coefficients from the monitor counts to the neutron fluence at a calibration point were obtained from the reference fluence measured with the transfer instrument of the primary standard laboratory (AIST), a 24.13 cm phi Bonner sphere counter. The traceability of the fields to AIST was established through the calibration.     

Development of a tiny neutron probe with an optical fibre for BNCT

We have developed a tiny neutron probe detector as a monitor of a thermal neutron flux for boron neutron capture therapy. The detector consists of an optical fibre and a small neutron probe. We have used a film-like ZnS(Ag) scintillator and a 6LiF neutron converter for the neutron probe. In order to improve the gamma-neutron discrimination ability, vacuum evaporation of 6LiF onto the ZnS(Ag) film has been done. In order to improve the neutron detection efficiency, we made use of a wavelength-shifting fibre as the probe material. The characteristics of the above two types of fibre probe detector have been evaluated experimentally.     

Radiation distribution sensing with normal optical fiber

The purpose of this study is to develop a radiation distribution monitor using a normal plastic optical fiber. The monitor has a long operating length and can obtain continuous radiation distributions. A principle of the position sensing is based on a time-of-flight technique. The monitor is sensitive to beta rays or charged particles, gamma rays, and fast neutrons. The spatial resolutions for beta-rays ( ⁹⁰Sr-⁹⁰Y), gamma-rays (¹³⁷Cs), and D-T neutrons are 30, 37, and 13 cm, respectively. The detection efficiencies for the beta-rays, gamma-rays, and D-T neutrons are 0.11%, 1.6×10 ^-5% and 1.2×10^-4%, respectively. The effective attenuation length of the detection efficiency is 18 m. In this paper, we describe the basic characteristics of this monitor     

Changes in ribosomal properties during adenylate deprivation in the cells of Kluyveromyces lactis

In an adenine-requiring mutant strain of the yeast, Kluyveromyces lactis, the intracellular content of ATP is one-third to one-fifth that in a prototrophic wild strain under growing conditions. The quantitative differences becomes rather small in resting stationary-phase cells. Temporary changes in the two-dimensional protein patterns of mutant ribosomes occur when the ATP content is lowest during the transition phase of growth. The transfer of exponentially growing cells to a synthetic complete medium void of adenine induces the same changes in mutant ribosomes within several hours. Identification of ribosomal proteins by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis indicated all changeable proteins (at least five proteins) to belong to 40S ribosomal subunits. The mutant ribosomes prepared from the transition-phase cells have much lower activity (below 60%) for poly(U)-directed polyphenylalanine synthesis than those in exponentially growing or resting stationary-phase cells. Thus, changes in ribosomal components associated with the differences in ribosome activity in a cell-free system were noted in the adenylate-deprived cells of K. lactis.     

Development of novel rare earth doped fluoride and oxide scintillators for two-dimensional imaging

Two topics were focused.The first one was about the gamma-ray scintillator,Pr3+:Lu3Al5O12(LuAG) .The second one was about neutron scintillator,Ce3+:6LiCaAlF6 and Eu2+:6LiCaAlF6(6LiCAF) .Those scintillators have been developed very recently for modern imaging appli-cations in the medical and homeland security fields.In both cases,the rare earth ions are playing the crucial role as emission centers.Pr3+ in LuAG provided fast 5d→4f transition providing noticeably shorter decay time than that of Ce3+.Among several candidate hosts,LuAG showed the best performance.Bulk crystal growth,basic scintillation properties,two-dimensional gamma-ray imaging and positron emission mammography(PEM) application were demonstrated.Due to the international situation,the homeland security was compromized by illicit traffic of explosives,drugs,nuclear materials,etc.and the ways to its improvement became an important R&D topic.For this purpose the Ce and Eu doped LiCAF ap-peared competitive candidates.Especially,when substitution of 3He neutron detectors was considered,the discrimination ability of gamma-ray from alpha-ray was important.Bulk crystal growth,basic scintillation properties and two-dimensional neutron imaging were demonstrated.     

A study on the neutron monitoring system of LHD based on Monte Carlo simulations

Neutron monitoring is quite important because fusion neutrons are a direct evidence of fusion reactions. In calibration experiments of a neutron monitoring system, Monte Carlo calculations play an important role to correct various effects. To perform Monte Carlo calculations for a helical type fusion device, we make a program that can automatically generate an input file of a helical coil geometry for the MCNP code. The neutron spatial distributions and spectra for the helical devices are calculated in the geometries automatically generated by this program. We also discuss in calibration experiments.     

Absolute measurement of activity of ¹⁹⁸Au foils using the 4πβ-γ coincidence counting method and corrections by the Monte Carlo simulation

The thermal neutron fluence rate is determined by the gold activation method. The absolute activity of the irradiated gold foil is measured by a 4πβ-γ coincidence counter. Using this method, corrections for the detection of conversion electrons and gamma rays by a 4πβ counter are very important to obtain accurate absolute activity. In this work, Monte Carlo simulations were performed to derive the correction factor K. The absolute measurement of (198)Au activity for 20-100 μm thickness Au foils were performed to verify the calculating model of the 4πβ-γ coincidence counting system.     

Improvement of energy spectrum characteristics of CdZnTe semiconductor detector by means of digital waveform processing with neural network algorithm

We have studied the improvement of gamma-ray energy spectrum characteristics of a CdZnTe semiconductor detector by means of a neural network algorithm. The neural network recognizes the pulse shapes and determines the corrective magnification factors of pulse heights. After the corrective procedure with the network, the gamma-ray energy spectra of some radioisotope sources become more ideal with better energy resolution.     

New idea of a small-sized neutron detector with a plastic fibre

A small-sized thermal neutron detector based on a (6)Li-glass scintillator and a plastic optical fibre has been developed for precise measurement of the spatial distribution of thermal neutron fluence rate. This detector was tested in experiments performed using thermal neutrons. The detector is useful in a thermal neutron field. However, the gamma-ray discrimination ability of the (6)Li-glass scintillator is not good in a low-intensity thermal neutron field. A new idea using a gamma-ray suppression method is proposed to reduce the uncertainty in the neutron counts due to the gamma-ray background. A novel small-sized thermal neutron detector consists of a (6)Li-glass scintillator, a hollow CsI(Tl) scintillator and plastic optical fibres. The evaluation of the gamma-ray suppression ability of the detector using the EGS4 code indicates that the gamma-ray suppression is effective.