Development of single sphere spectrometer with gold foil detector for neutron spectrometry

Abstract

We developed a single sphere spectrometer (SSS) with a gold foil detector for neutron spectrometry. The detector of SSS is seven gold foil with 11 mm diameter and 0.18 mm thickness, which is placed in the polyethylene sphere of 30 cm diameter. The response of the detector was calculated for neutron in energy range 1×10−9 MeV up to 1 × 102 MeV using the Monte Carlo method by the MCNPX code system. The calculations were done based on the input of the SSS geometry model, source radiation, and fluence tally models. The validation of this SSS response was done with measure the neutron spectra from 252Cf standard source at the neutron calibration laboratory of the Center for Technology of Radiation Safety and Metrology, National Nuclear Energy Agency, and compared with Bonner Sphere Spectrometer (BSS) LiI(Eu). Based on this comparison, it was known that the SSS Au foils measurement differs from the BSS LiI(Eu) by about 1%.