Neutron Imaging Camera

Abstract

We describe the Neutron Imaging Camera (NIC) being developed for the detection of special nuclear materials by NASA/GSFC and NSWC/Carderock. The NIC is a self-contained, robust, omni-directional and 3He-independent neutron detector based on the Three-Dimensional Track Imager (3-DTI) technology developed at GSFC for gamma-ray astrophysics applications. The 3-DTI is a large volume time-projection chamber that provides ∼ 0.4 mm resolution for the 3-D tracking of a charged particle. The incident direction of fast neutrons, 0.1 MeV < En < 10 MeV, are reconstructed from the momenta and energies of protons resulting from single and double scatters on methane (CH4). We present angular and energy resolution of the NIC derived from laboratory and accelerator testing.