Development and Performance Study of a Capillary Liquid Scintillator Neutron Detector
Abstract
Capillary liquid scintillator detectors are promising for high-resolution neutron imaging, yet experimental data on their light spread mechanism and spatial performance remain limited. Here, we report a neutron detector based on a hexagonal capillary array filled with EJ-309 liquid scintillator, with an inner diameter of about 50 um and a camera readout of 9 um pixels. Laser experiments show that the FWHM of the full light spot decreases from 260 um to 90 um with a metal light absorber, confirming effective suppression of lateral light spread. Using an AmBe neutron source, an effective field of view with a 5-sigma threshold was established from background frames. For single-capillary events, the pulse height spectrum follows a Landau distribution with a most probable value of 0.133 +/- 0.001 (stat.), and the intrinsic detection efficiency is 10.07% +/- 1.26% (stat.) +/- 1.43% (syst.), corresponding to about 13.55% when normalized to the active liquid scintillator area. The point spread function core yields a radial FWHM of 12.8 um and a centroid positioning precision of approximately 5.5 um (1 sigma), while the intrinsic position resolution is limited by the capillary pitch to 54 um. Linearity is good for 1 to 2 capillaries, with deviation appearing for 2 to 3 capillaries due to additional capture of spread light. These results provide experimental basis and physical understanding for imaging applications of capillary liquid scintillator neutron detectors.
Related
- Detailed investigation on the Geant4 simulation of alpha particles in liquid scintillator detector
- Energy, vertex, and time response of a LiquidO detector with an opaque-scintillator target to Compton-tagged electrons
- A micro time projection chamber (µTPC) toward a primary detector concept for neutron metrology between first 565 keV and 5 MeV, and potentially 24 keV and 19 MeV
- The efficiency of moderating neutron detector: Monte Carlo simulation, experimental validation, and angular dependence
- Construction and performance evaluation of a meter-scale monolithic scintillator tracker with embedded scatterers
BibTeX
@misc{luo2026development,
title = {{Development and Performance Study of a Capillary Liquid Scintillator Neutron Detector}},
author = {Guang Luo and Jian Yu and Dikai Li and Yanmeng Dai and Meiling Chen and Jiaqiang Zou and Ke Yan and Shaoxuan Cui and Ge Jin and Zhao Xu and Chunhui Zhang and Leifeng Cao},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.36769},
eprint = {2609.36769},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.36769},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Development and Performance Study of a Capillary Liquid Scintillator Neutron Detector
AU - Guang Luo
AU - Jian Yu
AU - Dikai Li
AU - Yanmeng Dai
AU - Meiling Chen
AU - Jiaqiang Zou
AU - Ke Yan
AU - Shaoxuan Cui
AU - Ge Jin
AU - Zhao Xu
AU - Chunhui Zhang
AU - Leifeng Cao
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.36769
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.36769
AB - Capillary liquid scintillator detectors are promising for high-resolution neutron imaging, yet experimental data on their light spread mechanism and spatial performance remain limited. Here, we report a neutron detector based on a hexagonal capillary array filled with EJ-309 liquid scintillator, with an inner diameter of about 50 um and a camera readout of 9 um pixels. Laser experiments show that the FWHM of the full light spot decreases from 260 um to 90 um with a metal light absorber, confirming effective suppression of lateral light spread. Using an AmBe neutron source, an effective field of view with a 5-sigma threshold was established from background frames. For single-capillary events, the pulse height spectrum follows a Landau distribution with a most probable value of 0.133 +/- 0.001 (stat.), and the intrinsic detection efficiency is 10.07% +/- 1.26% (stat.) +/- 1.43% (syst.), corresponding to about 13.55% when normalized to the active liquid scintillator area. The point spread function core yields a radial FWHM of 12.8 um and a centroid positioning precision of approximately 5.5 um (1 sigma), while the intrinsic position resolution is limited by the capillary pitch to 54 um. Linearity is good for 1 to 2 capillaries, with deviation appearing for 2 to 3 capillaries due to additional capture of spread light. These results provide experimental basis and physical understanding for imaging applications of capillary liquid scintillator neutron detectors.
ER -