Praseodymium activation detector for measuring bursts of 14 MeV neutrons

A new, accurate, neutron activation detection scheme for measuring pulsed neutrons has been designed and tested. The detection system is sensitive to neutrons with energies above 10 MeV; importantly, it is insensitive to gamma radiation <10 MeV and to lower-energy (e.g., fission and thermal) neutrons. It is based upon the use of 141Pr, an element that has a single, naturally occurring isotope, a significant n,2n cross-section, and decays by positron emission that result in two coincident 511 keV photons. Neutron fluences are thus inferred by relating measured reaction product decay activity to fluence. Specific sample activity is measured using the sum-peak method to count gamma-ray coincidences from the annihilation of the positron decay products. The system was tested using 14 and 2.45 MeV neutron bursts produced by NSTec Dense Plasma Focus Laboratory fusion sources. Lead, copper, beryllium, and silver activation detectors were compared. The detection method allows measurement of 14 MeV neutron yield with a total error of ≈18%.