Energy measurement of 241Am-9Be neutrons by tagged neutron time-of-flight.

Neutron energy spectrum of a 241Am-9Be source was measured in the energy range of 0.3 to ∼ 6.5 MeV using γ-ray tagged neutron time-of-flight method. BC501A type organic liquid scintillator detector was used at a flight path of 175 cm to detect neutrons with good energy resolution. The de-excitation γ-ray emitted in coincidence with neutrons was detected using a fast BaF2 detector. The measured data has been compared with the ISO 8529-2 standard neutron reference spectrum and found good agreement in the overlapping energy region. Present measurement applied efficiency correction to the data and extended up to 0.3 MeV in the lower energy region compared to earlier reported measurement using similar technique.

Development of a time of flight spectrometer based on position sensitive multi-wire proportional counters for fission fragment mass distribution studies.

Characteristics and performance of a time of flight (TOF) spectrometer developed for performing fission mass distribution studies are presented. The spectrometer contains two TOF arms based on multi-wire proportional counters (MWPCs). Each arm has two MWPCs to form a start-stop detection system for TOF measurements. The start detector has an active area of 4 × 4 cm2. The stop detector is a two-dimensional position sensitive MWPC with an active area of 16 × 11 cm2. Salient features of the MWPCs are the use of reduced sub-millimeter wire pitches of 0.635 and 0.317 mm in the electrodes along with the use of gold plated tungsten wires of diameters 10 and 20 µm. A delay line for position electrodes is prepared using chip inductors and capacitors. Ten different configurations of MWPC were investigated for the start detector, which involved the use of three and four electrode geometries, use of different wire pitches, and use of aluminized mylar for timing electrodes. Performance results close to micro-channel plate detectors have been observed with some designs of MWPC, displaying rise times better than 2 ns with an estimated inherent time resolution of ∼100 ps FWHM. A position resolution of ∼1 mm (FWHM) has been observed. Design features of the MWPCs and their test performance results are described in this article.