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The All Boron Carbide Diode Neutron Detector: Experiment and Modeling Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2011

Ildar Sabirianov ,
Robert W Fairchild  and
Jennifer I Brand
Ildar Sabirianov
Affiliation:
[email protected], University of Nebraska at Lincoln, College of Engineering/Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience, 209N Walter Scott Engineering Center, 17th & Vine Streets, Lincoln, NE, 68588-0511, United States
Robert W Fairchild
Affiliation:
[email protected], Nebraska Wesleyan University, Physics, 5000 St. Paul Ave. Olin Hall of Science 133, Lincoln, NE, 68504-2794, United States
Jennifer I Brand
Affiliation:
[email protected], University of Nebraska at Lincoln, College of Engineering/Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience, 17th & Vine Streets, WSEC, UNL, 245N, Lincoln, NE, 68588-0511, United States
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Abstract

Boron carbide diode detectors, fabricated from two different polytypes of semiconducting boron carbide, will detect neutrons in reasonable agreement with theoretical expectations. The performance of the all boron carbide neutron detector differs, as expected, from devices where a boron rich neutron capture layer is distinct from the diode charge collection region (i.e. a conversion layer solid state detector).

Diodes were fabricated from natural abundance boron (20% 10B and 80% 11B.) directly on the metal substrates and metal contacts applied to the films as grown. The total boron depth was on the order of 2 microns. This is clearly not a conversion-layer configuration. The diodes were exposed to thermal neutrons generated from a paraffin moderated plutonium-beryllium source in moderated and unmoderated, as well as shielded and unshielded experimental configurations, where the expected energy peaks at at 2.31 MeV and 2.8 MeV were clearly observed, albeit with some incomplete charge collection typical of thinner diode structures. The results are compared with other boron based thin film detectors and literature models.

Keywords

chemical vapor deposition (CVD) (deposition)semiconductingthin film
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 981: Symposium JJ – Structural and Refractory Materials for Fusion and Fission Technologies , 2006 , 0981-JJ06-06
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2007

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References

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