Low-background spectrometer for the study of fast neutron-induced (n,α) reactions

An α-particle spectrometer based on an ionization chamber with Frisch grid and a waveform digitizer has been developed for studies of fast neutron-induced (n,α) reactions. The information on the energy of the α-particle and its emission angle can be obtained from the amplitude and rise time of the digitized anode signal. For a situation where both the solid target on the cathode of the ionization chamber and the working gas are the α-particle sources, a new method for the suppression of the neutron-induced background is proposed. The background due to gaseous α-particles was reduced by a factor of 30.