| 1. |
- Andersson Sundén, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Evaluation of neutron spectrometer techniques for ITER using synthetic data
- 2013
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 701, s. 62-71
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A neutron spectrometer at ITER is expected to provide estimates of plasma parameters such as ion temperature, Ti, fuel ion ratio, nt/nd, and Qthermal/Qtot, with 10-20% precision at a time resolution, Δt, of at least 100 ms. The present paper describes a method for evaluating different neutron spectroscopy techniques based on their instrumental response functions and synthetic measurement data. We include five different neutron spectrometric techniques with realistic response functions, based on simulations and measurements where available. The techniques are magnetic proton recoil, thin-foil proton recoil, gamma discriminating organic scintillator, diamond and time-of-flight. The reference position and line of sight of a high resolution neutron spectrometer on ITER are used in the study. ITER plasma conditions are simulated for realistic operating scenarios. The ITER conditions evaluated are beam and radio frequency heated and thermal deuterium-tritium plasmas. Results are given for each technique in terms of the estimated time resolution at which the parameter determination can be made within the required precision (here 10% for Ti and the relative intensities of NB and RF emission components). It is shown that under the assumptions made, the thin-foil techniques out-perform the other spectroscopy techniques in practically all measurement situations. For thermal conditions, the range of achieved Δt in the determination of Ti varies in time scales from ms (for the magnetic and thin-foil proton recoil) to s (for gamma discriminating organic scintillator).
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| 2. |
- Andersson Sundén, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Instrumentation for neutron emission spectrometry in use at JET
- 2010
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 623:2, s. 681-685
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The present contribution discusses two neutron spectrometers: the time-of-flight spectrometer (TOFOR) and the magnetic proton recoil spectrometer (MPRu). TOFOR uses fast plastic scintillators equipped with digital time-stamping electronics to register the time of each eligible scintillation event. The time trace for each detector is acquired practically dead-time free. The detectors of the MPRu are of phoswich type and each detector is connected to a digital transient recorder card that stores the full waveform for an event. By using phoswich detectors, pulse-shape discrimination techniques can be applied offline to distinguish signal events from background. A future upgrade of TOFOR could be digital “hybrid” cards, which store correlated time and waveform information. This information can be used to decrease the background level in the ttof spectrum, thereby increasing the operating range.
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| 3. |
- Andersson Sundén, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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The thin-foil magnetic proton recoil neutron spectrometer MPRu at JET
- 2009
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 610:3, s. 682-699
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Neutrons are produced in fusion energy experiments with both deuterium (D) and deuterium–tritium (DT) plasmas. Neutron spectroscopy is a valuable tool in the study of the underlying fuel ion populations. The magnetic proton recoil neutron spectrometer, originally installed at JET in 1996 for 14-MeV neutron measurements, has been upgraded, with the main aim of improving its signal-to-background ratio (S/B), making measurements of the 2.5-MeV neutron emission in D plasmas possible. The upgrade includes a new focal-plane detector, based on the phoswich technique and consequently less sensitive to background, and a new custom-designed digital data acquisition system based on transient recorder cards. Results from JET show that the upgraded MPRu can measure 2.5-MeV neutrons with S/B=5, an improvement by a factor of 50 compared with the original MPR. S/B of 2.8×104 in future DT experiments is estimated. The performance of the MPRu is exemplified with results from recent D plasma operations at JET, concerning both measurements with Ohmic, ion cyclotron resonance (ICRH) and neutral beam injection (NBI) plasma heating, as well as measurements of tritium burn-up neutrons. The upgraded instrument allows for 2.5-MeV neutron emission and deuterium ion temperature measurements in plasmas with low levels of tritium, a feature necessary for the ITER experiment.
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| 4. |
- Binda, Federico, 1987-, et al.
(författare)
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Generation of the neutron response function of an NE213 scintillator for fusion applications
- 2017
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : ELSEVIER. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 866, s. 222-229
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this work we present a method to evaluate the neutron response function of an NE213 liquid scintillator. This method is particularly useful when the proton light yield function of the detector has not been measured, since it is based on a proton light yield function taken from literature, MCNPX simulations, measurements of gammarays from a calibration source and measurements of neutrons from fusion experiments with ohmic plasmas. The inclusion of the latter improves the description of the proton light yield function in the energy range of interest (around 2.46 MeV). We apply this method to an NE213 detector installed at JET, inside the radiation shielding of the magnetic proton recoil (MPRu) spectrometer, and present the results from the calibration along with some examples of application of the response function to perform neutron emission spectroscopy (NES) of fusion plasmas. We also investigate how the choice of the proton light yield function affects the NES analysis, finding that the result does not change significantly. This points to the fact that the method for the evaluation of the neutron response function is robust and gives reliable results. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.
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| 5. |
- Gatu Johnson, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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The 2.5-MeV neutron time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR for experiments at JET
- 2008
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 591:2, s. 417-430
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A time-of-flight (TOF) spectrometer for measurement of the 2.5-MeV neutron emission from fusion plasmas has been developed and put into use at the JET tokamak. It has been optimized for operation at high rates (TOFOR) for the purpose of performing advanced neutron emission spectroscopy (NES) diagnosis of deuterium plasmas with a focus on the fuel ion motional states for different auxiliary heating scenarios. This requires operation over a large dynamic range, including high rates of > 100 kHz with a maximum value of 0.5 MHz for the TOFOR design. This paper describes the design principles and their technical realization. The performance is illustrated with recent neutron TOF spectra recorded for plasmas subjected to different heating scenarios. A true event count rate of 39 kHz has been achieved at about a tenth of the expected neutron yield limit of JET, giving a projected maximum of 400 kHz at peak JET plasma yield. This means that the count rate capability for NES diagnosis of D plasmas has been improved more than an order of magnitude. Another important performance factor is the spectrometer bandwidth, where data have been acquired and analyzed successfully with a response function for neutrons over the energy range 1 to > 5 MeV. The implications of instrumental advancement represented by TOFOR are discussed.
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| 6. |
- Hellesen, Carl, et al.
(författare)
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Impact of digitization for timing and pulse shape analysis of scintillator detector signals
- 2013
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 720, s. 135-140
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we investigate the effects of full digitization of scintillator signals. The requirements on the analog to digital converter (ADC), in terms of sampling rate (f(s)) and bit resolution, are investigated. Two applications for scintillator detectors are studied, pulse timing and particle species identification. We find that signal reconstruction using sinc interpolation can be used e.g. for high-precision timing of a sampled electric pulse. Timing performances better than 6 ps (FWHM) were obtained if f(s) equals or exceeds twice the maximum frequency of the scintillator pulse. Failing to meet this criterion deteriorates both the performance of pulse timing and particle identification. We find that the bit resolution of the ADC is very important also for timing of pulses.
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| 7. |
- Ronchi, Emanuele, et al.
(författare)
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A bipolar LED drive technique for high performance, stability and power in the nanosecond time scale
- 2009
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 599:2-3, s. 243-247
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Pulsed light sources are often used to monitor the stability of light detectors such as photomultiplier tubes. Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are suitable for this due to their high specific light yield. While pulsed operation in the region of [mu]s is generally accessible with most LEDs and drivers, the ns time scale often represents a technical challenge. This paper describes a technique of bipolar LED drive that can produce light pulses of a few ns at high stability, reliability and power. The driver also offers control over the properties of the light pulse produced such as shape, intensity and repetition rate. This approach has been studied in 2003 and implemented in 2004 for two fusion neutron spectrometers at the Joint European Torus (JET) namely the Magnetic Proton Recoil upgrade (MPRu) and the Time Of Flight Optimized for Rate (TOFOR). A driver has been manufactured and connected to the scintillation detectors of each spectrometer through an optical fiber distribution network. Both MPRu and TOFOR have been successfully relying on this system for calibration and performance monitoring for several years, confirming the long-term stability and reliability of this technique.
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| 8. |
- Ronchi, Emanuele, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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A neural network pulse shape discrimination and pile-up rejection framework for the BC501 neutron/gamma liquid scintillator
- 2009
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 610:2, s. 534-539
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BC-501 is a liquid scintillation detector sensitive to both neutrons and gamma rays. As these produce slightly different signals in the detector, they can be discriminated based on their pulse shape (Pulse Shape Discrimination, PSD). This paper reports on results obtained with several PSD techniques and compares them with a method based on artificial neural networks (NN) developed for this application. Results indicated a large performance advantage of NN especially in the region of small deposited energy which typically contains the majority of the events. NN were also applied for discrimination of pile-up events with good results. This framework can be implemented on some of the most recent programmable data acquisition cards and it is suitable for real-time application.
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| 9. |
- Ronchi, Emanuele, et al.
(författare)
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An artificial neural network based neutron-gamma discrimination and pile-up rejection framework for the BC-501 liquid scintillation detector
- 2009
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 610:2, s. 534-539
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BC-501 is a liquid scintillation detector sensitive to both neutrons and gamma rays. As these produce slightly different signals in the detector, they can be discriminated based on their pulse shape (Pulse Shape Discrimination, PSD). This paper reports on results obtained with several PSD techniques and compares them with a method based on artificial neural networks (NN) developed for this application. Results indicated a large performance advantage of NN especially in the region of small deposited energy which typically contains the majority of the events. NN were also applied for discrimination of pile-up events with good results. This framework can be implemented on some of the most recent programmable data acquisition cards and it is suitable for real-time application.
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| 10. |
- Ronchi, Emanuele, et al.
(författare)
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Neural networks based neutron emissivity tomography at JET with real-time capabilities
- 2010
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 613:2, s. 295-303
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tomographic reconstruction techniques typically require computationally intensive algorithms which are not suitable for real-time application. This paper describes a framework to perform neutron emissivity tomography at the Joint European Torus (JET) using neural networks with successful results over a broad range of magnetic configurations, heating and fueling schemes. Application times in the [mu]s time scale allows for real-time applicability of the method.
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