10–14 Nov 2014
INFN - LNS
Europe/Rome timezone

Francesco Sacchetti

Neutron  detectors

Francesco Sacchetti

The detection of neutrons is a special case of neutral radiation detection because the energy transfer from neutron to matter should be based mainly on nuclear reactions and there is the need to detect  neutrons also with very low kinetic energy. In addition, the  production of neutrons has a high energetic cost and the source are  practically always "white" sources. In recent time the detection of  neutrons became important also for the so called "homeland security"  because there is the need for controlling the un-authorized transport  of fissile materials. In this presentation, after a brief recall of  the basic neutron detection reactions, the available technology of  neutron detection is discussed from the primary event to the data  acquisition. Special attention is devoted to the presentation of the  technology of 3He detectors which dominated the last forty years.
The lack of the availability of this isotope on the international  market is discussed and the proposed alternatives and their limits are  considered. The options offered by the new technologies are also  considered looking at the different applications in physics research  (e.g. nuclear physics and fusion research) and at the use of neutron  scattering for condensed matter studies where there is a complex need  for high spatial resolution detectors and large area detectors with  good time resolution and large dynamic range.
The capability of the neutron detectors in detecting "real" neutron  signals against those due to gamma-rays is also discussed.
Finally a look at the hypothetical new detection approaches is briefly considered to allow for more cost effective solutions and more flexible designs.
 
Francesco Sacchetti is full professor of Solid State physics at the University of Perugia where he is working since 1983 after having worked as researcher at CNEN and at CNR. He has been involved in the last forty years in theory of condensed matter and in the development of neutron scattering in Italy as well. He has been responsible for several instrumentation developments at the major European neutron sources. More recently his interest has been devoted to the study of  THz atomic dynamics in liquid metals as prototypes of interacting  Fermi liquids, to the application of new neutron based techniques to  the life science and also to the use of neutrons in some basic aspects  of quantum mechanics, e.g. Hambury-Brown and Twiss like experiments  and Bell's theorem related experiments.