Study of silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) with organic scintillator for neutron diagnostics of thermonuclear plasma

•Dynamic range of SIPMS allowing fusion neutron detection by the recoil proton method.•Evaluation of the ability of SIPMS to discriminate neutrons and gamma rays.•Most suitable SIPMS size parameters for the detection of thermonuclear fusion neutrons. The spectrometry of neutrons produced by fusion r...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Fusion engineering and design 2022-05, Vol.178, p.113113, Article 113113
Main Authors: Dendene, Omar, Afanasiev, Valery Viktorovich, Lushin, Sergey Vladimirovich, Chergui, Ahmed Cherif, Stifutkin, Alexey Anatolyevich, Boukerdja, Layachi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Electric fields
Fast neutrons
Figure of merit
Neutron Diagnostics
Photomultiplier tubes
Plasmas (physics)
Pulse shape
Pulse Shape Discrimination
Recoil protons
Scientific imaging
Scintillation counters
Silicon
Silicon Photomultiplier
Spectrometry
Spectroscopy
Stilbene
Thermonuclear fusion
Thermonuclear Plasma
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•Dynamic range of SIPMS allowing fusion neutron detection by the recoil proton method.•Evaluation of the ability of SIPMS to discriminate neutrons and gamma rays.•Most suitable SIPMS size parameters for the detection of thermonuclear fusion neutrons. The spectrometry of neutrons produced by fusion reactions of plasmatic ions is the most powerful neutron diagnostic tool for monitoring reactor operating power, temperature and concentration of ions. Currently, new generations of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are being used in several light detection fields, including nuclear domain; they have performances similar to conventional photomultipliers tubes (PMTs), while benefiting advantages of solid-state technology such as insensitivity to magnetic and electric fields, excellent temperature stability, robustness, low operating voltage, small size, and low cost. Consequently, they could be a useful device in neutron spectrometer based on recoil proton method for neutron diagnostics of hot plasmas. In this paper, we have demonstrated SiPMs capabilities to be used for fast neutron detection as well as their dynamic range for thermonuclear fusion neutron spectrometry (14 Mev). The responses of SiPMs having different sizes of active areas and microcells manufactured by Ketek and SensL have been studied. Excellent pulse shape discrimination of PuBe source radiations by SiPMs combined with a stilbene crystal has been proven; the figure of merit has reached 3.33. The study has also allowed the determination of the size parameters of SiPMs that are suitable for neutron diagnostics of thermonuclear plasmas.
ISSN:0920-3796
1873-7196
DOI:10.1016/j.fusengdes.2022.113113