A Gated Liquid-Scintillator-Based Neutron Detector for Fast-Ignitor Experiments and Down-Scattered Neutron Measurements

The detection of neutrons in fast-ignitor experiments or down-scattered neutrons in inertial fusion experiments is very challenging since it requires the neutron detection system to recover within 10–100 ns from a high background orders of magnitude stronger than the signal of interest. The background is either the hard x-ray emission from short-pulse laser target interactions for the fast-ignitor experiments or the primary neutron signal for the down-scattered neutrons. A liquid-scintillator detector has been developed using a gated photomultiplier that suppresses the background signal and eliminates the afterglow present in conventional plastic scintillators.