Prototype of Integrated Pulse Digitalization and Readout Electronics for CLYC Detector

The detector Cs₂LiYCl₆ (CLYC) scintillator has the ability to discriminate thermal neutron, fast neutron and gamma interactions. It is a potential direct replacement for ³He proportional counter and NaI:Tl crystals in detection system of security check instruments at customs, ports, etc. In this paper, first, the gamma-ray detection efficiency of NaI:Tl and CLYC, and the thermal neutron detection efficiency of ³He and CLYC are simulated based on Geant4. Second, a prototype of integrated pulse digitalization and readout electronics is designed for a 1''x1'' CLYC detector. Third, the charge comparison method (CCM) and the charge integration are used to make the pulse shape discrimination (PSD) and energy spectrum analysis. It concludes that CLYC (doped with 95% ⁶Li) has the approximate gamma-ray detection efficiency with NaI:Tl and thermal neutron detection efficiency with 8-atm ³He at the same volume. The results of energy resolution and PSD figure-of-merit (FoM) using 500 MSPS/12-Bit and 1 GSPS/8-Bit digitizers are also compared.