X-ray and neutron pulse separation of plasma focus using fast and large volume plastic scintillator detector

Due to the short time of neutron pulses produced in PF, counting these pulses is the most important technical challenge in the field of neutron diagnostics. In this context, many counters and detectors have been designed, as can be noted the activation counters, Geiger Muller and scintillator detectors. Activation counters, count the number of produced neutrons, but the time variation of neutron emission from plasma focus device is not measured by such counters. When a scintillator detector is irradiated by short neutron pulse, the time variation of this pulse is registered by the scintillator. In this research, the large volume plastic scintillator detector with optimized dimensions is used for observation of plasma focus neutron pulse as well as hard X-ray pulse. Because of the speed difference between produced neutrons and X-ray photons, if the detector is located in a proper distance from the Plasma Focus, the neutron and X-ray pulses could be seen separately. Measurements results showed that 3.5 meters distance between the detector and the plasma focus is appropriate for observation of neutron and X-ray pulses separately. Pulsed neutron source in this experiment is a 2.5kJ Mather type plasma focus device (SBUPF1) in Shahid Beheshti University with average neutron flux~3×10⁷.