Fluence measurement of fast neutron fields with a highly efficient recoil proton telescope using active pixel sensors

The spectrometer ATHENA (Accurate Telescope for High-Energy Neutron metrology Applications) is being developed at the LNE-IRSN and aims at characterising energy and fluence of fast neutron fields. The detector is a recoil proton telescope and measures neutron fields in the range of 5-20 MeV. This telescope is intended to become a primary standard for both energy and fluence measurements. The neutron detection is achieved by a polyethylene radiator for n-p conversion, three 50-µm-thick silicon sensors that use CMOS technology for proton tracking and a 3-mm-thick silicon diode to measure the residual proton energy. The use of CMOS sensors and silicon diode, owing to a large detection solid angle, increases the intrinsic efficiency of the detector by a factor of 10 compared with conventional designs. The ability of the spectrometer to determine the neutron energy was demonstrated and reported elsewhere. This paper focuses on the fluence measurement of monoenergetic neutron fields in the range of 5-20 MeV. Experimental investigations, performed at the AMANDE facility, indicate a good estimation of neutron fluence at various energies. In addition, a complete description of uncertainties budget is presented in this paper and a Monte Carlo propagation of uncertainty sources leads to a fluence measurement with a precision ∼3-5 % depending on the neutron energy.