A gas-based neutron imaging detector with individual read-outs

A gas-based neutron imaging detector with individual read-outs with high spatial and temporal resolutions was developed for thermal neutron scattering experiments. The compact detector comprises a gas vessel that can withstand 11 atm, which feeds 541 signal lines to multichannel signal amplifier boards located close by to ensure a high signal-to-noise ratio and fast detector response. The performances of prototype detectors employing multiwire (MW) and microstrip (MS) detector heads were evaluated using a collimated cold-neutron beam. The MW detector system, which has a sensitive area of 40×40 mm2 with a wire pitch of 1 mm in each dimension (40×2 channels of read-outs), exhibited an average spatial resolution of 1.5 mm for 6.8-atm helium with 1.2-atm CF4. The MS detector system, which has a sensitive area of 51×51 mm2 with a strip pitch of 0.4 mm in each dimension (128×2 channels of read-outs), exhibited an average spatial resolution of 1.1 mm under the same gas conditions. The developed detector system exhibited position sensitivity that was linear to within 1% and a pulse-pair resolution of less than 1 μs.