Thermalization patterns for broad neutron energy range real-time semiconductor personal dosimetry

This paper concerns neutron detection below 500-keV energies. The paper studies numerically simulated responses from thermalized neutrons. These neutrons are induced by monoenergetic dose equivalent neutron beams ranging between 14 MeV and 1 eV. Results are first discussed against several moderating stack efficiencies. The discussion analyzes the lowest standard deviation relative to the mean thermalized flux calculated over several incident neutron energy bands of which upper values decrease from 14 MeV to 100 keV. The simulated responses show near 50% response accuracy if monitoring neutrons in the range 1 eV to 100 keV with a small 1.5-cm radius 5-cm thick polyethylene cylinder. Adding neutron converter foils, the efficiency is then calculated against secondary photon detection. An overlap between fast neutron detection efficiencies and those at lower energies is found to be possible, so that similar diodes can be used for both recoil protons and radiative photon detection.