Pulse-shape discrimination in neutron depth profiling radioanalytical, methods. Part II

Pulse shape discrimination (PSD) is used for the reduction of radiation bac kground in the depth sensitive neutron depth profiling method (NDP) based o n the detection of charged particles from the (n, alpha) and (n, p) nuclear reactions induced by thermal neutrons on some light elements. The experime ntal NDP-PSD arrangement is described and its performance is demonstrated o n the measurement of real samples. Background reduction by several orders o f magnitude in the region below 1 MeV leads to a corresponding sensitivity improvement and to an extension of the measurable depth region for some lig ht elements.