B-10 lined wire plane chamber as a neutron detector

Studies have been carried out using Wire Plane Chamber (WPC) with multiple grid planes for neutron detection after finding its suitability for detection of alpha and fission fragments with argon fill gas. The inner surface of top cathode plate of the chamber was coated with boron so as to generate alpha particles by thermal neutron interaction with boron atoms. Performance of present anode wire plane electrodes is found to be better due to the reduction in the average distance traveled by the charge particle cloud from the ionization track to reach the nearest electrode and therefore with much better charge collection efficiency. Moreover the capacitance of the chamber is significantly reduced with multi anode wire plane electrodes resulting in better signal to noise ratio,and therefore, WPCs can be used for lower energy alpha particle detection than possible with large area ionization chambers. The response of a boron-10 coated WPC in the present study shows that it can be used as neutron detector at lower bias voltages as compared to the conventional proportional counter. (author)