A high-efficiency thermal neutron detector based on thin 3D 10B4C converters for high-rate applications

A new position-sensitive thermal neutron detector based on boron-coated converters has been developed as an alternative to today's standard 3He-based technology for application to thermal neutron scattering. The key element of the development is a novel 3D 10B4C converter which has been ad hoc designed and realized with the aim of combining a high neutron conversion probability via the 10B(n, α)7Li reaction together with an efficient collection of the produced charged particles. The developed 3D converter is composed of thin aluminium grids made by a micro-waterjet technique and coated on both sides with a thin layer of 10B4C. When coupled to a GEM detector this converter allows reaching neutron detection efficiencies close to 50% at neutron wavelengths equal to 4 Å. In addition, the new detector features a spatial resolution of about 5 mm and can sustain counting rates well in excess of . The newly developed neutron detector will enable time-resolved measurements of different kind of samples in neutron scattering experiments at high flux spallation sources and can find a use in applications where large areas and custom geometries of thermal neutron detectors are foreseen.