Neutron detector attachment device
AssigneePrinceton Gamma Tech. Instruments Inc.
InventorGreg Nelson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An auxiliary neutron detector apparatus designed for attaching and supplementation to an existing gamma-ray spectrometer adds improved neutron detection capabilities. The apparatus uses the existing detector and so does not require additional detector materials, including 3He, which are required by conventional neutron detector attachments. Because of the cost and limited availability of detector materials, this invention is particularly valuable for upgrading systems without existing neutron detector, and for repairing systems with damaged neutron detectors.
Claims29
A detector device to process neutron events from a radioactive source designed for attachment to an existing gamma-ray spectrometer, comprising:
- i) a signal splitter;
- ii) a high-input-impedance amplifier receiving one of the outputs of the signal splitter;
- iii) an analog-to-digital converter for digitizing the amplifier output into digital samples;
- iv) a processing element for converting the digital samples into an internal representation of the signal, and for subsequently converting the internal representation into a neutron output;
- and
- v) a physical neutron output for connection to another system.
An device to process neutron events, designed for attachment to a plurality of “N” existing gamma-ray spectrometers, comprising:
- i) N signal splitters;
- ii) N high-input-impedance amplifiers each receiving a signal from one of a corresponding signal splitters;
- iii) one or more analog-to-digital converters for digitizing the outputs of the N amplifiers into digital samples;
- iv) a processing element for converting the digital samples into N internal representations of the corresponding signals;
- and for subsequently converting the N internal representations into neutron outputs;
- and v) one or more physical neutron outputs for connection to other systems.
A method of augmenting a gamma-ray spectrometer to process neutron events comprising the steps of:
- i) splitting the analog gamma-ray source signal from a detector;
- ii) returning part of the split signal to the original gamma spectrometer;
- iii) passing the other part of the split signal to an amplifier;
- iv) processing the analog detector signal with the amplifier;
- v) digitizing the amplified signal with an analog-to-digital converter to produce a set of digital samples;
- vi) processing the digital samples to isolate the neutron-related events;
- vii) creating an output that indicates the neutron-related events.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.