Study on the gamma rays and neutrons energy response optimization of a scintillating fiber detector for EAST with Geant4

A new scintillating fiber detector inside magnetic shielding tube was designed and assembled for use in the next round of fusion experiments in the experimental advanced superconducting tokamak to provide D–T neutron yield with time resolution.In this study,Geant4 simulations were used to obtain the pulse height spectra for ideal signals produced when detecting neutrons and gamma rays of multiple energies.One of the main sources of interference was found to be low-energy neutrons below 10–5 MeV,which can generate numerous secondary particles in the detector components,such as the magnetic shielding tube,leading to high-amplitude output signals.To address this issue,a compact thermal neutron shield containing a 1-mm Cd layer outside the magnetic shielding tube and a 5-mm inner Pb layer was specifically designed.Adverse effects on the measurement of fast neutrons and the shielding effect on gamma rays were considered.This can suppress the height of the signals caused by thermal neutrons to a level below the height corresponding to neutrons above 4 MeV because the yield of the latter is used for detector calibration.In addition,the detector has relatively flat sensitivity curves in the fast neutron region,with the intrinsic detection efficiencies(IDEs)of approximately 40%.For gamma rays with energies that are not too high(<8 MeV),the IDEs of the detector are only approximately 20%,whereas for gamma rays below 1 MeV,the response curve cuts off earlier in the low-energy region,which is beneficial for avoiding counting saturation and signal accumulation.

Optimization study and design of scintillating fiber detector for DT neutron measurements on EAST with Geant4

Real-time monitoring of the 14-MeV D-T fusion neutron yield is urgently required for the triton burnup study on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). In this study, we developed an optimal design of a fast-neutron detector based on the scintillating fiber (Sci-Fi) to provide D-T neutron yield through Geant4simulation. The effect on the detection performance is concerned when changing the number of the Sci-Fis embedded in the probe head, minimum distance between the fibers, length of the fibers, or substrate material of the probe head. The maximum number of scintillation photons generated by the n/γ source particles and output by the light guide within an event (event:the entire simulation process for one source particle) was used to quantify the n/γ resolution of the detector as the main basis. And the intrinsic detection efficiency was used as another evaluation criterion. The results demonstrate that the optimal design scheme is to use a 5 cm probe head whose substrate material is pure aluminum, in which 463 Sci-Fis with the same length of 5 cm are embedded, and the minimum distance between the centers of the two fibers is 2 mm. The optimized detector exhibits clear directionality in the simulation, which is in line with the expectation and experimental data provided in the literature. This study presents the variation trends of the performance of the SciFi detector when its main parameters change, which is beneficial for the targeted design and optimization of the Sci-Fi detector used in a specific radiation environment.

Observation of trapped and passing runaway electrons by infrared camera in the EAST tokamak

In EAST,synchrotron radiation is emitted by runaway electrons in the infrared band,which can be observed by infrared cameras.This synchrotron radiation is mainly emitted by passing runaway electrons with tens of MeV energy.A common feature of radiation dominated by passing runaway electrons is that it is strongest on the high field side.However,the deeply trapped runaway electrons cannot reach the high field side in principle.Therefore,in this case,the high field side radiation is expected to be weak.This paper reports for the first time that the synchrotron radiation from trapped runaway electrons dominates that from passing runaway electrons and is identifiable in an image.Although the synchrotron radiation dominated by trapped runaway electrons can be observed in experiment,the proportion of trapped runaway electrons is very low.