Speaker
Description
High resolution scintillators such as lanthanum bromide (LaBr3) have been widely utilised for their excellent properties in terms of timing and energy resolution. Our recent paper highlighted a potential further avenue of study with their application to the field of neutron detection. Through exploitation of neutron-proton and neutron-alpha reaction channels on the halide component of the material we can convert a high resolution scintillator into a dual-mode detector capable of identifying neutron signatures within a mixed radiation field. Here we assess the neutron detection performance of several tri-halide scintillators (LaBr3, LaCl3, LBC, and CeBr3) through exposure to an Americium-Beryllium source. We report on the ability of the materials to separately identify neutron and gamma ray events, and, where applicable, the susceptibility to internal alpha contamination.
