Comprehensive study of pulse shape discrimination in a Ga-doped zinc oxide scintillating detector  

作　　者：Kuo Zhao Liang Chen Ning Lv Lei-Dang Zhou Shi-Yi He Jin-Lu Ruan Han Wang Xiao-Ping Ouyang 

机构地区：[1]Xi’an Research Institute of Hi-Tech,Xi’an 710025,China [2]Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology,Xi’an 710024,China [3]School of Microelectronics,Xi’an Jiaotong University,Xi’an 710049,China

出　　处：《Nuclear Science and Techniques》2025年第3期38-49,共12页核技术(英文)

基　　金：supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.12205370,62204198,12305205,and 12105230);Young Talents Promotion Program of Shaanxi Provincial Science and Technology Association(No.20220514)。

摘　　要：Doping with Ga effectively enhances the crystal quality and optical detection efficiency of zinc oxide(Zn O)single crystals,which has attracted considerable research interest in radiation detection.The application of Zn O:Ga(GZO)in nuclear energy is particularly significant and fascinating at the fundamental level,enabling neutron/gamma discrimination while preserving the response time properties of the single crystal in sub-nanoseconds,maximizing the effective counting rate of the pulsed radiation field.In this study,the single-particle waveform discrimination characteristics of GZO were evaluated for five charged particles(α,β,H^(+),Li^(+),and O^(8+)and two prevalent uncharged particles(neutrons and gamma rays).Based on the timecorrelation single-photon counting(TCSPC)method,the luminescence decay time constants of the charged particles in the GZO crystal were determined as follows:1.21 ns for H^(+),1.50 ns for Li^(+),1.70 ns for O^(8+),1.56 ns forαparticles,and 1.09 ns forβparticles.Visible differences in the excitation time spectra curves were observed.Using the conventional time-domain or frequency-domain waveform discrimination techniques,waveform discrimination of 14.9 Me V neutrons and secondary gamma rays generated by the CPNG-6 device based on GZO scintillation was successfully implemented.The neutron signal constituted 77.93%of the total,indicating that GZO exhibited superior neutron/gamma discrimination sensitivity compared with that of a commercial stilbene crystal.Using the neutron/gamma screening outcomes,we reconstructed the voltage pulse height,charge height,and neutron multiplication time spectra of the pulsed neutron radiation field.The reconstructed neutron multiplication time spectrum exhibited a deviation of less than 3%relative to the result obtained using a commercial stilbene scintillator.This is the first report in the open literature on the neutron/gamma discrimination and reconstruction of Zn O pulsed radiation-field information.

关 键 词：Zinc oxide Scintillation crystal Pulse shape discrimination Radiation luminescence Pulsed neutron radiation field 

分 类 号：O57[理学—粒子物理与原子核物理]