New generation plastic scintillators for fast neutron spectroscopy and Pulse Shape Discrimination

New generation of plastic scintillators have been developed at RMD for fast neutron detection technology. These plastics have peak emission wavelength ~ 440 nm, fast scintillation decay <; 10 ns, light output ~ 13,000 photons/MeV, and excellent Pulse Shape Discrimination (PSD) between gamma rays and neutrons. We have achieved a Figure-of-Merit (FOM) of 2.3 at 1.0 MeVee electron energy threshold for a 2 inch diameter right cylinder sample. At RMD, comparative measurements were made between the plastic scintillator and Eljen liquid scintillator EJ309 both 1 inch diameter × 1 inch length. RMD plastic showed competitive performance. Additionally, in an experiment performed at the University of Kentucky 7 MV Van De Graaff accelerator, RMD plastic scintillator was irradiated with mono-energetic fast neutron beam energies up to 20.8 MeV. The results from this experiment confirm fast neutron spectroscopy capabilities. These results and effects of different electronic systems on the PSD measurements are discussed in this paper.