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Concept
Neutron detection
Summary
Neutron detection is the effective detection of neutrons entering a well-positioned detector. There are two key aspects to effective neutron detection: hardware and software. Detection hardware refers to the kind of neutron detector used (the most common today is the scintillation detector) and to the electronics used in the detection setup. Further, the hardware setup also defines key experimental parameters, such as source-detector distance, solid angle and detector shielding. Detection software consists of analysis tools that perform tasks such as graphical analysis to measure the number and energies of neutrons striking the detector.
Atomic and subatomic particles are detected by the signature they produce through interaction with their surroundings. The interactions result from the particles' fundamental characteristics.
Charge: Neutrons are neutral particles and do not ionize directly; hence they are harder than charged particles to detect directly. Further, their paths of motion are only weakly affected by electric and magnetic fields.
Mass: The neutron mass of 1.0086649156u is not directly detectable, but does influence reactions through which it can be detected.
Reactions: Neutrons react with a number of materials through elastic scattering producing a recoiling nucleus, inelastic scattering producing an excited nucleus, or absorption with transmutation of the resulting nucleus. Most detection approaches rely on detecting the various reaction products.
Magnetic moment: Although neutrons have a magnetic moment of -1.9130427 μN, techniques for detection of the magnetic moment are too insensitive to use for neutron detection.
Electric dipole moment: The neutron is predicted to have only a tiny electric dipole moment, which has not yet been detected. Hence it is not a viable detection signature.
Decay: Outside the nucleus, free neutrons are unstable and have a mean lifetime of 885.7s (about 14 minutes, 46 seconds). Free neutrons decay by emission of an electron and an electron antineutrino to become a proton, a process known as beta decay:
_Neutron0 → _Proton+ + _Electron + _Electron antineutrino.
Official source
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