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Material Development Toward An Index-Matched Gadolinium-Based Heterogenous Capture-Gated Neutron Detector, Aaron J. Thorum

Theses and Dissertations

Neutron detection is important in several fields, especially detection of illicit nuclear material. Historically, 3He has been the basis for these technologies. Modern realities have necessitated the development of new technologies and the exploration of new materials to meet this need. One potential solution is known as capture-gating, which is a measurement approach that is good at differentiating between incident neutrons and gamma rays. The key issue is that materials used in current capture-gating devices can suffer from poor optical performance. This is due to the fact that the these detectors, whether composed of a heterogeneous or homogeneous mixture of …