Investigation of Perylene as a Converter Material for Fast Neutron Detection and Spectroscopy Using GEANT4 Monte Carlo Simulations

Abstract

Monte Carlo simulations have been performed to investigate the perylene (C20H12) as a converter layer for fast neutron detection and spectroscopy. Perylene is an organic semiconductor material having high hydrogen content which could be utilized as a medium of elastic scattering for fast neutrons to produce recoil protons such as in proton recoil detector. This charged recoil proton would further liberate e-hole pairs while traversing through the material which will induce the detector’s response in the associated electronics with appropriate applied reverse voltage. Perylene is used as a neutron converter layer on top of the wide band-gap semiconductor material such as silicon carbide (SiC) which can maintain its typical characteristics even in the harsh radiation environment. SiC would help in efficient charge collection resulting from recoil proton. The thickness of perylene as a converter layer was optimized and found to be ~500 μm for wide energy range of fast neutrons. This work would further aid in the comparative study of different converter material for SiC-based fast neutron detector.