Simulation Study of Using High-Z EMA to Suppress Recoil Protons Crosstalk in Scintillating Fiber Array for 14.1 MeV Neutron Imaging

This paper studies the effect of a high-Z extra mural absorber (EMA) to improve the spatial resolution of a plastic (polystyrene) scintillating fiber array for 14.1 MeV fusion neutron imaging. Crosstalk induced by recoil protons was studied, and platinum (Pt) was selected as EMA material, because of its excellent ability to suppress the recoil protons penetrating the fibers. Three common fiber arrays (cylindrical scintillating fibers in square and hexagonal packing arrangements and square scintillating fibers) were simulated using the Monte Carlo method for evaluating the effect of Pt-EMA in improving spatial resolution. It is found that the resolution of the 100 μm square fiber array can be improved from 1.7 to 3.4 lp/mm by using 10- μm-thick Pt-EMA; comparatively, using an array with thinner square fibers (50 μm) only obtains a resolution of 2.1 lp/mm. The packing fraction decreases with the increase of EMA thickness. Our results recommend the use of 10 μm Pt-EMA for the square and the cylindrical (hexagonal packing) scintillating fiber arrays with fibers of 50-200 μm in the cross-sectional dimension. Besides, the dead-zone material should be replaced by high-Z material for the hexagonal packing cylindrical fiber array with fibers of 50-200 μm in diameter. Tungsten (W) and gold (Au) are also used as EMA in the three fiber arrays as a comparison. The simulation results show that W can be used at a lower cost, and Au does not have any advantages in cost and resolution improvement.