Comparative Analysis of the Neutron–Gamma Discrimination Methods for Scintillators Based on Lithium Glass

Abstract—

The characteristics of neutron scintillation detectors built on monolithic and heterogeneous scintillators containing ⁶Li were studied. The detectors were tested on a thermal neutron beam and on a stand with a source of γ-quanta ⁶⁰Co. To process the signals received from the detector with a monolithic scintillator, three different γ-radiation discrimination algorithms were used: registration of pulses at a constant threshold and selection according to the pulse shape using two digital signal separation methods: charge integration and pulse duration measurement. For a homogeneous scintillator, pulse shape selection methods work approximately the same when separating thermal neutrons and γ-quanta and are significantly inferior to the method of registration at a constant threshold. In this case, the quality of the n/γ separation is worse than the result obtained with a heterogeneous scintillator when recording at a constant threshold. The purpose of the work is to compare the results of using digital methods for discrimination of gamma-quanta with the results obtained using heterogeneous scintillators.