Fast neutron spectrometer composed of position-sensitive proportional counters and Si(Li)-SSDs with excellent energy resolution and detection efficiency

We have developed a fast neutron spectrometer composed of three position-sensitive proportional counters (PSPCs) with methane gas and two Si(Li) detectors. A collimated incident neutron interacts with a hydrogen atom in the methane gas to generate a recoil proton. Position information on the recoil proton obtained from the PSPCs gives the recoil angle. At the same time, the energy of the recoil proton is measured with the three PSPCs and the Si(Li) detectors. Finally, the neutron energy is derived using the recoil-proton energy and the recoil angle. This spectrometer was experimentally tested using a monoenergetic neutron beam with energy of 5.0 MeV. The energy resolution and the detection efficiency were 3.5% and 1.1×10^-5, respectively. The energy resolution better than 2% could be achieved by selecting events under proper conditions. We also developed a Monte-Carlo code in order to evaluate the characteristics of the spectrometer. The calculation results were compared with the experimental ones.