Design of activation counter cell for counting of fast neutrons produced by plasma focus device

In this paper two geometries for pulsed neutron counter structure have been introduced and to increase the activation counter efficiency, plastic scintillation along with silver foils was used. Cubic and cylindrical geometries for activation counter cell were modeled using MCNP4C code. In respect of absorption reaction rate in silver, the number of silver foils and the length of the counter were optimized. The optimum length of 14 centimeters had been proposed for counter cell and because of the economic aspects, the optimum number of silver foils for cubic and cylindrical geometries are 20 and 10, respectively. The optimum data were used to construct a cubic counter and the neutron yield of SBUPF1 plasma focus device was measured by this counter. Experimental results show that about 3.71*107 neutrons are produced per pulse.