Response of liquid scintillator detectors to neutrons of En<1 MeV

The response of liquid scintillator detectors to neutrons of energy 0.1<En<1 MeV has been studied with a 252Cf source. The measured light output is compared with the results of Monte-Carlo simulations performed with the GEANT/MICAP package. A good agreement is obtained with an empirically determined light-energy curve for recoil protons. For a threshold of 10 keVee on the light output, the high efficiency measured for neutron energies as low as 0.1 MeV makes liquid scintillator detectors adequate for studies of low-energy neutron sources.