Boron-Coated Straw Neutron Imaging Detector Testing at the CSNS

A neutron imaging detector, based on boron-coated straws (BCS), a technology aimed to replace
³
He tubes in large- scale neutron science instruments, has been tested at the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS), a recently commissioned neutron science facility in Dongguan, China. The detector consists of bundles of straws, each 7.5 mm in diameter, 1 m in active length, coated on the inside with a pure layer of
¹⁰
B- enriched boron carbide (
¹⁰
B
₄
C). A total of 231 BCS are employed in the full imaging panel, which has a sensitive area of 0.18×1.0 m
²
. We present results of initial testing with a collimated neutron beam designed to determine spatial resolution, and a series of planned improvements, including the replacement of the copper straw wall with aluminum to minimize scattering, design modifications that allow operation inside vacuum, and a fast amplifier that can achieve a pulse width on the order of tens of nanoseconds.