Instruments for use of 6Li as a standard

A review is given of the instruments which use the 6Li(n,α)3H reaction as a standard in the measurement of neutron flux. These instruments consist of scintillation detectors, gaseous ionization detectors, and external particle detectors. The Li glass scintillator is the most versatile because of minimized effects of the angular distribution of the reaction products and simplicity. The gaseous ionization detector has lower gamma-ray sensitivity than does the scintillation detector. Surface-barrier diodes may be used to detect the reaction products when a neutron spectrometer is desired. A choice of instruments to use this reaction must consider gamma-ray sensitivity, effects of the angular distribution of the reaction, and the range of the triton in the detector