Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Structural and component characterization of the B4C neutron conversion layer deposited by magnetron sputtering

  • Jingtao Zhu (Key Laboratory of Advanced Micro-structured Materials, Ministry of Education, School of Physical and Engineering, Tongji University) ;
  • Yang Liu (Key Laboratory of Advanced Micro-structured Materials, Ministry of Education, School of Physical and Engineering, Tongji University) ;
  • Jianrong Zhou (Spallation Neutron Source Science Center) ;
  • Zehua Yang (State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Fudan University) ;
  • Hangyu Zhu (Key Laboratory of Advanced Micro-structured Materials, Ministry of Education, School of Physical and Engineering, Tongji University) ;
  • Xiaojuan Zhou (Spallation Neutron Source Science Center) ;
  • Jinhao Tan (Spallation Neutron Source Science Center) ;
  • Mingqi Cui (State Key Laboratory of Particle Detection and Electronics, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) ;
  • Zhijia Sun (Spallation Neutron Source Science Center)
  • Received : 2023.03.22
  • Accepted : 2023.05.09
  • Published : 2023.09.25
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Abstract

Neutron conversion detectors that use 10B-enriched boron carbide are feasible alternatives to 3He-based detectors. We prepared boron carbide films at micron-scale thickness using direct-current magnetron sputtering. The structural characteristics of natural B4C films, including density, roughness, crystallization, and purity, were analyzed using grazing incidence X-ray reflectivity, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, and scanning electron microscopy. A beam profile test was conducted to verify the practicality of the 10B-enriched B4C neutron conversion layer. A clear profile indicated the high quality of the neutron conversion of the boron carbide layer.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. U1932167, 12175254, 11875204, 12227810, U2032166, 11975255), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (22120210446 and 22120180070).

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