A fast large-area position-sensitive time-of-flight neutron detection system

A novel position-sensitive time-of-flight neutron detection and histograming system has been developed for use at the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source. Spatial resolution of roughly 1 cm×1 cm and time-of-flight resolution of ~1 μs are combined in a detection system which can ultimately be expanded to cover several square meters of active detector area. This system is based on the use of arrays of cylindrical one-dimensional position-sensitive proportional counters and is capable of collecting the x-y-t data and sorting them into histograms at time-averaged data rates up to ~300000 events/s over the full detector area and with instantaneous data rates up to more than 50 times that. Numerous hardware features have been incorporated to facilitate initial tuning of the position encoding, absolute calibration of the encoded positions, and automatic testing for drifts