Study on Structural and Material Dependence of Rhodium Self-powered Neutron Detector Performance

The neutron measurement properties of Rh-SPNDs are greatly affected by their geometric constructions, which needs to be optimized while designing. This effect is reflected in the sensitivities for gamma and neutron detection. However, the influence on gamma sensitivity has not been fully analyzed before, which is of the same importance as neutron sensitivity. Therefore, it is necessary to quantitatively analyze the relationship between detector sensitivity and geometric dimensions. The effect of Rh-SPND structural and material parameters on neutron and gamma sensitivities has been calculated and analyzed through numerical simulations. The research results show that detector sensitivities are strongly depending on the detector size and its emitter shape. Moreover, the detector response to exogenous reactor gamma can be eliminated by optimizing the detector collector size.