RADIATION MONITORING DEVICES, INC. — Department of Homeland Security SBIR Phase II: H-SB016.1-012

Description

Radiation Monitoring Devices (RMD) has proposed a composite detector technology for multi-mode detection, based on incorporation of the inorganic scintillation material into an organic host such as the plastic scintillator, suitable for handheld and backpack applications. Plastic scintillator serves as an optical light guide, and can additionally provide gamma and fast neutron detection and pulse shape discrimination (PSD) in the case of the use of advanced plastic scintillators (developed at RMD). Since the composite detector with multiple small elements of inorganic scintillator behaves as a large volume single crystal, the primary advantage of this technology is that for building highly efficient, large volume detectors, only small size inorganic crystals are needed. The yield of small crystals produced from large boules is close to 100% which significantly reduces the cost. Therefore, most importantly, the cost of a composite detector can be significantly lower compared to high quality large single crystals of inorganic scintillators. CLYC is one of the very promising inorganic materials, given its capabilities to provide good gamma energy resolution over a large range of energies, thermal neutron detection, and PSD. Also, due to significant difference between the light decay of the gamma and neutron events in the plastic scintillator matrix and in the CLYC scintillator, events can be easily attributed to each material and excitation type using PSD. Depending upon the application, where superior energy resolution or higher specific efficiency is desired, other high performance scintillators such as CLLBC and TLYC are also viable options as a CLYC alternatives.