Total fluence influence on the detected magnitude of neutron burst using proportional detectors

Abstract

The measurement of very short neutron bursts, when individual neutrons cannot be counted in the usual manner, is possible with proportional detectors (such as 3He) taking the integration of the total electric charge due to many overlapped interactions, as the measure of the amount of the neutron signal. This method requires a correction related to the total amount of neutrons that interacted with the detector. This correction originates in the well-known build-up of positive electric charge too slow to be dislodged from the detection volume during the neutron burst. This causes self-shielding of the applied electric field with the ensuing reduction of the charge multiplication process in the gas, described in the literature. Short neutron bursts from a plasma focus device and a conventional isotopic neutron source were employed in the experimental phase and the known theory was applied in the analysis, which justifies assigning the observed effects to the space-charge shielding of the externally applied electric field. This work introduces a correction to the neutron yield derived from the registered electric charge, through a model of collected charge reduction as a function of total neutrons measured.