Test of a 3”×3” LaCl3:Ce crystal and neutron sensitivity of lanthanum halide scintillators

The availability of the new scintillator materials LaCl3 and LaBr3 offers a good opportunity for the design of new detector assemblies in different research fields. In particular, the total absorption technique employed in neutron capture measurements could be highly benefit from the use of these two scintillation materials due their excellent energy resolution and fast decay time properties. In this work we have tested a 3”×3” LaCl3 detector prototype coupled to a XP5300B photomultiplier. We have determined experimentally the energy resolution at different γ-ray energies and the intrinsic background related to ¹³⁸La. In addition we have studied the neutron sensitivity of both materials by means of GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulations.