Thermal neutron response of neutron detector based on SiC

With SiC diode and neutron conversion material ⁶LiF, neutron detector based on SiC was fabricated. The alpha-particle and thermal neutron response of neutron detector based on SiC were studied by ²⁴¹Am-alpha source and critical assembly, respectively. Excellent signals from the neutron detector to both alpha-particles and thermal neutrons have been observed. The neutron detector can be applied to particle intensity measurement. But because of the thin epitaxial layer, the detector can not be used for 5.48 MeV alpha-particle energy measurement. With different reactor power, the double peaks of alpha particles and ³H particles in the spectrum were obviously observed. A small amount of energy from gamma-ray was deposited in SiC neutron detector, which could be discriminated by pulse height discriminator. Count rate of SiC neutron detector was linear with critical assembly power, and which has a linearity of 0.999 97. After all, for SiC diode, it can be used for energy measurement by decreasing the thickness of Scotty contact metal and increasing the depth and qualities of epitaxial layer. (authors)