Performance of a real-size prototype neutron detector for the LAMPS at RAON

Abstract

A neutron detector array is one of the essential detector components for measuring the nuclear symmetry energy in the large-acceptance multipurpose spectrometer (LAMPS) to be built at the new radioactive ion-beam facility, RAON, in Korea. We have designed and built a real-size prototype neutron detector for the LAMPS and investigated its performance with radiation sources. The intrinsic time resolution of the prototype modules estimated by using Co-60 is about 1 ns. The neutrons and the gammas from Cf-252 are clearly separated in the time spectra. The kinetic energy spectrum of the fission neutrons from Cf-252 has been reconstructed and compared to the empirical Watt function. The result demonstrates that the current prototypes can detect neutrons with kinetic energies larger than about 6 MeV.