Development and test of high efficiency WSF fluorescent converter for fast neutron radiography

A fluorescent converter used for fast neutron radiography (FNR) was developed by using the Chinese made wavelength-shifting fibers (WSFs) and mixture of hydrogen rich epoxy resin with ZnS(Ag). The performance of the WSF converter compared with that of the epoxy resin converter (ER converter) was tested at the 4.5 MV Van de Graaff accelerator of Peking University as fast neutron source. Quasi-monoenergetic and continuous energy fast neutrons were derived through the D(d,n)3He and 9Be(d,n)10B reactions by using a deuterium gas target and a thick beryllium target, respectively. Experiments show that the luminosity of the WSF converter is 6–7.8 times as high as that of the ER converter we used before, and the statistics of the image is much better. The relationship between the luminosity and the thickness of the WSF converter was obtained from which the saturation thickness is about 25 mm. The smallest defect that can be detected by the WSF converter is about 2 mm.