Stoeckl C, Cruz M, Glebov V Yu, Knauer J P, Lauck R, Marshall K, Mileham C, Sangster T C, Theobald W
Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester, 250 East River Road, Rochester, New York 14623, USA.
Rev Sci Instrum. 2010 Oct;81(10):10D302. doi: 10.1063/1.3466899.
The detection of neutrons in fast-ignitor experiments or down-scattered neutrons in inertial fusion experiments is very challenging since it requires the neutron detection system to recover within 10-100 ns from a high background orders of magnitude stronger than the signal of interest. The background is either the hard x-ray emission from short-pulse laser target interactions for the fast-ignitor experiments or the primary neutron signal for the down-scattered neutrons. A liquid-scintillator detector has been developed using a gated photomultiplier that suppresses the background signal and eliminates the afterglow present in conventional plastic scintillators.
