Use of Silicon Photomultipliers in ZnS:6LiF scintillation neutron detectors: signal extraction in presence of high dark count rates

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Published 18 June 2014 © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab srl
, , Citation A Stoykov et al 2014 JINST 9 P06015 DOI 10.1088/1748-0221/9/06/P06015

1748-0221/9/06/P06015

Abstract

We report on the possibility of using Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) to detect the scintillation light from neutron conversion in ZnS:6LiF scintillators. The light is collected by wavelength-shifting fibers embedded into the scintillator. The difficulty of extracting neutron signals in the presence of high dark count rates of the SiPMs is addressed by applying a dedicated processing algorithm to analyze the temporal distribution of the SiPM pulses. With a single-channel prototype detection unit we demonstrate a very good neutron signal extraction at SiPM dark count rates of about 1 MHz.

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10.1088/1748-0221/9/06/P06015