Light Yield Response of Neutron Scintillation Screens to Sudden Flux Changes

We performed a study of the initial and long term light yield of different scintillation screen mixtures for neutron imaging during constant neutron irradiation. We evaluated the light yield during different neutron flux levels as well as at different temperatures. As high frame rate imaging is a topic of interest in the neutron imaging community, the decay characteristics of scintillation screens are of interest as well. Hence, we also present and discuss the decay behavior of the different scintillation screen mixtures on a time scale of seconds. We have found that the decay time of ZnS:Cu/⁶LiF excited with a high neutron flux is potentially much longer than typically stated. While most of the tested scintillation screens do not provide a significant improvement over currently used scintillation screen materials, Zn(Cd)S:Ag/⁶LiF seems to be a good candidate for high frame rate imaging due to its high light yield, long-term stability as well as fast decay compared to the other evaluated scintillation screens.