Development of a thermal neutron detector system using large area silicon detectors

A compact microprocessor controlled thermal neutron detector system has been developed for portable radiation monitoring. The system uses large area planar silicon detectors coupled to gadolinium convertor foils in a sandwich configuration. Analog hybrid electronics (8 channel shape amp and discriminator) has been developed to work with commercially available components to produce a low power, lightweight unit. Field programmable gate arrays have been configured with 8 channel counters and data latches which are controlled by a microcontroller unit. The microcontroller processes, stores and displays the data in real-time. A discussion of the detector system configuration is given and test results are presented