A first comparison of the responses of a He-based fast-neutron detector and a NE-213 liquid-scintillator reference detector

A first comparison has been made between the pulse-shape discrimination characteristics of a novel He-based pressurized scintillation detector and a NE-213 liquid-scintillator reference detector using an Am/Be mixed-field neutron and gamma-ray source and a high-resolution scintillation-pulse digitizer. In particular, the capabilities of the two fast neutron detectors to discriminate between neutrons and gamma-rays were investigated. The NE-213 liquid-scintillator reference cell produced a wide range of scintillation-light yields in response to the gamma-ray field of the source. In stark contrast, due to the size and pressure of the He gas volume, the He-based detector registered a maximum scintillationlight yield of 750 keVee to the same gamma-ray field. Pulse-shape discrimination for particles with scintillation-light yields of more than 750 keVee was excellent in the case of the He-based detector. Above 750 keVee its signal was unambiguously neutron, enabling particle identification based entirely upon the amount of scintillation light produced. & 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).