Publications

Average neutron time-of-flight instrument response function inferred from single D-T neutron events within a plastic scintillator

Styron, Jedediah D.; Ruiz, C.L.; Hahn, K.D.; Cooper, G.W.; Chandler, G.A.; Jones, B.; McWatters, B.R.; Forrest, C.J.; Vaughan, J.; Torres, J.; Pelka, S.; Smith, J.; Weaver, C.

The apparent ion temperature and neutron-reaction history are important characteristics of a fusion plasma. Extracting these quantities from a measured neutron-time-of-flight signal requires accurate knowledge of the instrument response function (IRF). This work describes a novel method for obtaining the IRF directly for single DT neutron interactions by utilizing n-alpha coincidence. The t(d,α)n nuclear reaction was produced at Sandia National Laboratories' Ion Beam Laboratory using a 300 keV Cockcroft-Walton generator to accelerate a 2.5 μA beam of 175 keV D+ ions into a stationary ErT2 target. The average neutron IRF was calculated by taking a time-corrected average of individual neutron events within an EJ-228 plastic scintillator. The scintillator was coupled to two independent photo-multiplier tubes operated in the current mode: a Hamamatsu 5946 mod-5 and a Photek PMT240. The experimental setup and results will be discussed.