Direct comparison between solid state Silicon+(LiF)-Li-6 and He-3 gas tube neutron detectors

During the last decade the worldwide lack of He-3 for neutron detection has triggered research and development on alternative technologies and methods. One of the promising techniques consists of assembling sandwiches of fully depleted double sided Silicon detectors between thin layers of (LiF)-Li-6 neutron converter material. In this paper we show the very promising result of a comparative test of such a detector with respect to an elliptical section He-3 filled proportional counter for application at spallation neutron source facilities. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).