Year
2017
Abstract
Organic scintillator materials are of great interest to the radiation detection community due to their ability to provide excellent discrimination between neutrons and gamma rays. This property enables strong indication of the presence of special nuclear materials. Neutron detection systems based on organic scintillator detectors are currently in development for applications in nuclear safeguards and emergency response. Anthracene, one type of organic scintillator detector, has been shown to exhibit significant temperature dependence in both light output and pulse shape, which impacts its light output resolution and neutron-gamma pulse shape discrimination. We are building data analysis tools to determine which additional organic scintillator detectors exhibit a temperature dependence. Our characterization of the temperature dependence in certain materials, or lack thereof, will inform groups who are developing organic scintillator detector-based field-deployable detection systems. If a temperature dependence is observed, this characterization can be used to correct for temperature effects during measurements in which the ambient temperature is changing.