POSITION-SENSITIVE DETECTION OF INDIVIDUAL NUCLEAR-PARTICLE SCINTILLATIONS USING IMAGE INTENSIFIER TUBES

An imaging position sensitive detector for charged particles, neutrons , X- and gamma rays has been developed. The novel feature of this scin tillation imaging radiation detector is its ability to detect individu al nuclear particle scintillations with a high degree of spatial resol ution, The key elements of this detector system are a high gain, low n oise image intensifier tube, a CCD camera and commercially available i mage processing hardware and software. This detector system is highly effective for applications such as low fluence and real time neutron r adiography, mapping of radioactive contamination in nuclear reactor fu el rods, X-ray diffraction imaging, high speed autoradiography and in general position sensitive detection of nuclear radiation. Results of some of the exploratory experiments carried out using this detector sy stem are presented in this paper.