High Efficiency Neutron Sensitive Amorphous Silicon Pixel Detectors

A. Mireshghi, G. Cho, J. S. Drewery, W. S. Hong, T. Jing, H. Lee, S. N. Kaplan, V. Perez-Mendez

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

A multi-layer a-Si:H based thermal neutron detector was designed, fabricated and simulated by Monte Carlo method. The detector consists of two a-Si:H pin detectors prepared by plasma enhancd chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and interfaced with coated layers of Gd, as a thermal neutron converter. Simulation results indicate that a detector consisting of 2 Gd films with thicknesses of 2 and 4 µm, sandwiched properly with two layers of sufficiently thick (~30µm) amorphous silicon diodes, has the optimum parameters. The detectors have an intrinsic efficiency of about 42% at a threshold setting of 7000 electrons, with an expected average signal size of ~12000 electrons which is well above the noise. This efficiency will be further increased to nearly 63%, if we use Gd with 50% enrichment in 157Gd, We can fabricate position sensitive detectors with spatial resolution of 300 µm with gamma sensitivity of ~1x10-5. These detectors are highly radiation resistant and are good candidates for use in various application, where high efficiency, high resolution, gamma insensitive position sensitive neutron detectors are needed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)915-921
Number of pages7
JournalIEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
Volume41
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 1994

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'High Efficiency Neutron Sensitive Amorphous Silicon Pixel Detectors'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this