Publications

A novel dual mode neutron-gamma imager

Mascarenhas, Nicholas M.; Brennan, James S.; Cooper, Robert L.; Mrowka, Stanley M.; Marleau, Peter M.

The Neutron Scatter Camera (NSC) can image fission sources and determine their energy spectra at distances of tens of meters and through significant thicknesses of intervening materials in relatively short times [1]. We recently completed a 32 element scatter camera and will present recent advances made with this instrument. A novel capability for the scatter camera is dual mode imaging. In normal neutron imaging mode we identify and image neutron events using pulse shape discrimination (PSD) and time of flight in liquid scintillator. Similarly gamma rays are identified from Compton scatter in the front and rear planes for our segmented detector. Rather than reject these events, we show it is possible to construct a gamma-ray image by running the analysis in a 'Compton mode'. Instead of calculating the scattering angle by the kinematics of elastic scatters as is appropriate for neutron events, it can be found by the kinematics of Compton scatters. Our scatter camera has not been optimized as a Compton gamma-ray imager but is found to work reasonably. We studied imaging performance using a Cs137 source. We find that we are able to image the gamma source with reasonable fidelity. We are able to determine gamma energy after some reasonable assumptions. We will detail the various algorithms we have developed for gamma image reconstruction. We will outline areas for improvement, include additional results and compare neutron and gamma mode imaging.