Study of a gold-foil-based multisphere neutron spectrometer

Multisphere neutron spectrometers with active thermal neutron detectors cannot be used in high-intensity radiation fields due to pulse pile-up and dead-time effects. Thus, a multisphere spectrometer using a passive detection system, specifically gold foils, has been investigated in this work. The responses of a gold-foil-based Bonner sphere neutron spectrometer were studied for two different gold-foil holder designs; an aluminium-polyethylene holder and a polyethylene holder. The responses of the two designs were calculated for four incident neutron beam directions, namely, parallel, perpendicular and at +/-45 degrees relative to the flat surface of the foil. It was found that the use of polyethylene holder resulted in a more isotropic response to neutrons for the four incident directions considered. The computed responses were verified by measuring the neutron spectrum of a 252Cf source with known strength.