Characteristics of hybrid plastic scintillators for slow neutron measurements

In this paper, we report the characteristics and the performance of the hybrid plastic scintillators for slow neutron measurements. The ¹⁰B-doped and Gd-layered scintillators were manufactured and tested for slow and fast neutrons, and gamma rays. The slow neutrons were provided by an energy moderation of the fast neutrons emitted from a 0.5 Ci ²⁵²Cf source. The energy of the slow neutrons ranged from 10 to 600 meV with a peak at 75 meV. Neutron response functions for the hybrid plastic scintillators were measured with the calibrated slow neutron flux. Furthermore, the pulse-shape analysis was performed to differentiate the slow neutrons from the gamma rays. For the ¹⁰B-doped scintillators, the difference lying in the tail-to-total charge ratio distribution of the pulses was conductive to estimate the fraction of the gamma rays in the neutron data. However, for the Gd-layered scintillators, the difference was insignificant.