Helium counters for low neutron flux measurements

Abstract

We present a comparison of some characteristics of helium counters for measurements of low intensity neutron flux. We focus on neutron flux density measurements in low background laboratories. Because of an extremely low counting rate (few events per hour or less), we have concentrated on counter parameters which are sometimes meaningless under regular conditions, i.e. background from internal alpha radioactivity, percentage of events in full energy peak, and the width of this peak. The background depends on residual radioactivity of the counter tube material and can not be eliminated. The full energy peak characteristics can be specified by counter gas composition. We will present a comparison of four types of helium gas counters. © Author(s) 2011.