Development of a simple prognostic method for SDD in neutron spectroscopy for steady-state fusion reactors

This work presents a simple prognostic algorithm making use of the data from Single-crystal Diamond Detectors (SDD) envisaged for neutron emission spectroscopy in future fusion reactors, where neutron irradiation itself is a source of detector degradation. The development of a simple algorithm enabled the estimation of the Remaining Useful Lifetime (RUL) of SDDs for neutron energy spectroscopy in steady-state fusion reactors. The proposed algorithm offers a methodology to enhance the reliability of plasma diagnostics by leveraging neutron spectra from the reactors through a straightforward self-assessment that employs pivotal detector outputs. The practicality of these methods was confirmed by the irradiation of 14 MeV neutrons in the Neutron Irradiation Laboratory for Electronics (NILE) at the ISIS spallation neutron source. The results showed that the proposed algorithm can reliably estimate the RUL of the tested SDD detectors with sufficient accuracy.