Cerium doped yttrium aluminum perovskite scintillator as an absolute ultracold neutron detector

M Krivoš; N C Floyd; Z Tang; C L Morris; M Blatnik; S M Clayton; C B Cude-Woods; A T Holley; D E Hooks; T M Ito; C-Y Liu; M Makela; I F Martinez; M R Martinez; A S C Navazo; C M O'Shaughnessy; R W Pattie; E L Renner; M Singh; J Surbrook; A R Young

doi:10.1063/5.0211059

Cerium doped yttrium aluminum perovskite scintillator as an absolute ultracold neutron detector

Rev Sci Instrum. 2024 Oct 1;95(10):103303. doi: 10.1063/5.0211059.

Authors

M Krivoš¹, N C Floyd^{1

2}, Z Tang¹, C L Morris¹, M Blatnik^{1

3}, S M Clayton¹, C B Cude-Woods^{1

4}, A T Holley⁵, D E Hooks¹, T M Ito¹, C-Y Liu⁶, M Makela¹, I F Martinez¹, M R Martinez^{1

7}, A S C Navazo¹, C M O'Shaughnessy¹, R W Pattie⁸, E L Renner¹, M Singh¹, J Surbrook¹, A R Young⁴

Affiliations

¹ Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
² University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506, USA.
³ W. K. Kellogg Radiation Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.
⁴ North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, USA.
⁵ Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, Tennessee 38505, USA.
⁶ University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois 61820, USA.
⁷ New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA.
⁸ East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee 37614, USA.

PMID: 39451102
DOI: 10.1063/5.0211059

Abstract

The upcoming UCNProBe experiment at Los Alamos National Laboratory will measure the beta decay rate of free neutrons with different systematic uncertainties than previous beam-based neutron lifetime experiments. We have tested a new 10B-coated Yttrium Aluminum Perovskite (YAP:Ce) scintillator and present its properties. The advantages of the YAP:Ce scintillator include its high Fermi potential, which reduces the probability for upscattering of ultracold neutrons (UCN), and its short decay time, which increases sensitivity at high counting rates. Birks' coefficient of YAP:Ce was measured to be (5.56-0.30+0.05)×10-4 cm/MeV. The loss of light due to the 120 nm 10B-coating was measured to be about 60%, and the loss of light from YAP:Ce due to transmission through a deuterated polystyrene scintillator was about 50%. The efficiency for neutron capture on the 10B coating was (86.8 ± 2.6)%, and a measurement using UCN showed that the YAP:Ce crystal counted 8%-28% more UCN compared to a ZnS:Ag screen. The difference may be due to the uneven coating of 10B on the rough surface of ZnS:Ag.

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