Study On The Two-dimensional Position Sensitive GEM Neutron Detector

As an ideal probe to detect the microstructure and dynamics behavior of a matter,neutron technologies have been widely applied to many scientific fields.As the development trend of the neutron science facilities in the World in the 21^st century,one is the high flux research reactor with the intensity about 10¹⁵n/cm²·s and another is spallation neutron source with the intensity about 10¹⁸n/cm²·s.Both are the critical tools for the innovation research on condensed matter physics,life science,information science,space technology and other related sophisticated technologies.The neutron detector is one of the most important devices of neutron instruments.During the past 50 years,³He-based gaseous detectors have been extensively used.The counting rate of the conventional wire detectors is much slow?<100kHz?,which cannot satisfy the demands of the new generation high-flux neutron sources.Moreover,the price of ³He rose prohibitively over the last decade.This inhibits the large-scale use of ³He-based detectors in neutron science.An alternative to ³He with higher counting rate is urgently required.The GEM is one type of new generation micro-pattern gaseous detector.By using cascaded GEMs,the detector can measure neutrons with very high counting rate?¹0 MHz?and high detection efficiency.This paper presents the study on the GEM-based neutron detector by the simulations and experiments.It mainly centers on the novel style of ceramic GEM developed for the neutron detection at CSNS.By the studies on the three key technologies of the GEM fabrication,boron coating and the fast readout electronics,a two-dimensional position sensitive GEM neutron detector has been developed,which should be well applied in the neutron science facilities in China.