Hirsh Tsviki Y, Long Alexander M, Losko Adrian S, Jaeger Tim T, Wolfertz Alexander, Vogel Sven C
Soreq NRC, Yavne, 81800, Israel.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 87545, United States of America.
Sci Rep. 2025 Apr 23;15(1):14026. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-96789-8.
A large-area event-mode camera system coupled with a [Formula: see text]LiF-ZnS:Ag scintillator is applied for neutron resonance imaging (NRI) on the energy-resolved neutron imaging (ERNI) flight path, also known as Flight Path 5 (FP5), at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). This novel neutron imaging system, featuring a 120×120 mm[Formula: see text] field of view, efficiently captures resonance information across the entire image in a single acquisition, significantly reducing beam time requirements compared to conventional energy-resolved neutron imaging systems. High-quality neutron radiographs with enhanced spatial resolution are achieved through the reconstruction of neutron events based on observations of individual photons emitted from the scintillator. The system demonstrates reduced background through neutron/gamma discrimination capabilities while maintaining sharpness across a large fields of view. In the measurements presented here, a spatial resolution of approximately 340 μm was achieved using center-of-gravity photon cluster centroiding. We demonstrate the system's capability for quantitatively determining isotopic distributions in various thin samples, as well as automatically reconstructing complex scenes with overlapping resonances from diverse samples. These results are obtained using standard data analysis tools, despite the relatively slow [Formula: see text]LiF-ZnS:Ag scintillator, which may not be optimal for absorption resonance detection. The capabilities demonstrated here offer a valuable, versatile, and cost-effective solution for high spatial and temporal resolution, large field-of-view energy-resolved neutron imaging, with potential applications across various scientific and industrial domains.
一个大面积事件模式相机系统与一个[化学式：见文本]LiF-ZnS:Ag闪烁体耦合，应用于洛斯阿拉莫斯中子科学中心（LANSCE）的能量分辨中子成像（ERNI）飞行路径（也称为飞行路径5（FP5））上的中子共振成像（NRI）。这种新型中子成像系统具有120×120毫米[化学式：见文本]的视场，在一次采集中就能有效地捕获整个图像上的共振信息，与传统的能量分辨中子成像系统相比，显著减少了束流时间需求。通过基于闪烁体发射的单个光子的观测来重建中子事件，实现了具有增强空间分辨率的高质量中子射线照片。该系统通过中子/伽马分辨能力降低了背景，同时在大视场内保持清晰度。在这里展示的测量中，使用重心光子簇质心定位实现了约340微米的空间分辨率。我们展示了该系统定量确定各种薄样品中同位素分布的能力，以及自动重建来自不同样品的具有重叠共振的复杂场景的能力。尽管[化学式：见文本]LiF-ZnS:Ag闪烁体相对较慢，可能不是吸收共振检测的最佳选择，但使用标准数据分析工具仍获得了这些结果。这里展示的能力为高空间和时间分辨率、大视场能量分辨中子成像提供了一种有价值、通用且经济高效的解决方案，在各种科学和工业领域都有潜在应用。
