Evaluation of boron-enriched plastic scintillator for thermal neutron detection

In recent years, we could observe significant progress in the design of accelerator-based neutron sources for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) . An important component of such systems is a neutron-sensitive detector system capable of monitoring the patient dose at significantly higher particle rates than in nuclear reactor systems. Simultaneous operation of two detectors: the first, sensitive to gammas, and the second, sensitive to gammas and neutrons, enables more accurate extraction of the neutron contribution. Scintillator-based detectors with fiber-optic readout have several important advantages. They are compact and have high speed, and additionally, the readout electronics can be placed far from the neutron source. In this research, we evaluated the main parameters of two plastic scintillators that are produced in Russia and meet this goal: SC-301 and boron-enriched SC-331. The resulting light yield of SC-331 was 8600 photons/MeV, and for SC-301 it was approximately 25% higher. Therefore, these scintillators are promising candidates for future detector systems.