Nitrogenous Explosives Detection by Neutron-Radiation Method Using Gamma Radiation Heterogeneous Scintillation Detector
This paper describes a heterogeneous scintillation detector (HSD) which can increases the sensitivity and reliability of explosives (HE) detection. The HSD consists of alternating layers of converting material where gamma quanta transform into electrons and positrons, and of detecting material where the energy of charged particles is transformed into light scintillations. Spectral sensitivity of the HSD can be varied by selecting thickness and number of layers. Thickness of the layers can be chosen so that charged particles which created in the converting layers can be registered in two or more scintillation layers. The calculations results of detection sensitivity of nitrogenous explosives by neutron-radiation method using HSD was presented. It was shown that the sensitivity of the described method using an optimal HSD would be significantly higher than in the traditional formulation of such measurements using large NaI (Tl) detectors, and in the future can be reduced to ~ 100 - 200 grams of TNT at the time of measurement less then one minute.