Measurement of the responses of small lithium glass scintillators to protons, deuterons and alpha particles

The application of lithium glass detectors to the measurement of the tritium production rate distribution in fusion blanket assemblies is under investigation at Lucas Heights. As a consequence of neutron-induced reactions within the glass detector, many charged particles are produced with energies ranging from zero to about 20 MeV, all of which produce scintillations. To isolate the signals arising from the tritium production reactions 6Li(n,α)T and 7Li(n,n'α)T within the glass, the characteristic responses of the glass to all charged particles are required. As part of this investigation, the response characteristics of thin lithium glass scintillators to protons, deuterons and alphas have been measured as a function of particle energy (0.8 to 2.7 MeV), lithium concentration (2.4 to 8.3 wt %) and lithium enrichment (95 wt % 6Li to 99.99 wt % 7Li)