Project Description

High-resolution, high-efficiency, semiconductor neutron imaging arrays are begin designed and built in a collaboration between the K-State S.M.A.R.T. Laboratory, the University of Tennessee, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The High-Efficiency Neutron Imaging Array Detector (HENIAD) will be deployed for measuring stress and strain measurements on a beam port at the DOE Spallation Neutron Source. The large collaboration includes experts in semiconductor detector design and fabrication, ASIC design, circuit design, radiation interaction modeling, neutron physics, and material science.

The linear array device resolution will be 100 microns in pitch, thereby allowing for spatial resolution not previously available for neutron scattering instruments. Further, using the cavity neutron detectors designed and first explored in the K-State S.M.A.R.T. Laboratory, along with their preexisting expertise in the development of neutron linear imaging arrays, the neutron imaging arrays will have intrinsic thermal neutron detection efficiency exceeding 40%. These dense pixel designs allow for the HENIAD to be placed closer to the workspace of the material under investigation than expected for gas-filled multiwire chambers. Hence, the entire instrument can be compact in size.

The NSF funded project has a target delivery date for the HENIAD of May 2007.