Particle discrimination in a mixed radiation field using scintillators is a challenging topic in radiation detection research. We propose a novel approach relying on the possibility of identifying particles interacting in a phoswich detector from the emission spectrum of the produced scintillation signal. As a proof of concept, we focus on the discrimination between neutrons and gamma rays. LuAlO:Pr and GdAlGaO:Ce thin single crystal scintillators, coupled to two different silicon photomultipliers equipped with optical filters, are simultaneously used in the same phoswich detector. Their optical emissions peak at approximately 310 nm and 545 nm respectively, and thus they can easily be distinguished by optical filtering. While both crystals are sensitive to gamma rays, neutrons interact only with the GdAlGaO:Ce thanks to the presence of Gd acting as neutron converter. Optical filtration and an anti-coincidence algorithm are therefore used to perform particle discrimination, rejecting coincidence signals arising from gamma rays, which simultaneously deposit energy in both crystals, and counting anti-coincidence signals due to neutrons, which deposit energy only in the GdAlGaO:Ce. The simple neutron counter developed here is intended to be a proof of the principle of the feasibility of the color-based particle discrimination technique.

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/).

We present a single pixel prototype of a pixelated Bragg edge detector for neutron transmission measurements. The optical signal coming from a scintillator is collected by an optical fiber and is detected by an avalanche photodiode. A fast, Field Programmable Gate Array based, readout allows to obtain transmission spectra within reasonable acquisition times. The performances of the instrument have been tested by measuring the transmission spectra of iron powder samples with two different scintillators. The instrument accuracy in detecting the Bragg edges positions is comparable with the state of the art for similar devices.