Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) - low-energy neutron spectrometer for neutron field characterization)

Abstract

Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is known to be a promising and new cancer therapy which can kill tumor cells suppressing damage to normal tissues. Recently, accelerator based neutron sources (ABNS) for BNCT are under development especially in Japan. For characterization of the neutron field, we carried out the series study concerning thermal/epi-thermal neutron spectrometry especially for ABNS based BNCT. In the present study, we tested a commercially available position sensitive 3He proportional counter as the neutron detector combined with a measuring system using a multi-parameter MCA and a thermal/epi-thermal column designed and constructed for test measurements. From the results, the characteristics of the spectrometer were obtained through the basic experiments. Also, spectrum measurements were carried out with the thermal/epi-thermal neutron field. Agreement between the calculation and measurement was acceptable for both cases, showing that measurement would be possible for neutron energy from 0.01 eV to 10 keV. The spectrometer is hence expected to be applied to characterization measurement of the neutron field in the real BNCT scene in the future. © 2014 The Japan Society of Plasma Science and Nuclear Fusion Research.