| 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. |
- Cecconello, Marco, et al.
(författare)
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The 2.5 MeV neutron flux monitor for MAST
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 753, s. 72-83
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A proof-of-principle collimated Neutron flux Camera (NC) monitor for the measurement of the 2.45 MeV neutron emission from the deuterium–deuterium fusion reactions has been developed, installed and put into use at the Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST). The NC measures the spatial and time resolved volume integrated neutron emissivity in deuterium fusion plasmas in the presence of auxiliary plasma heating along two equatorial and two diagonal lines of sight whose tangency radius can be varied between plasma discharges. This paper describes the NC design principles, their technical realization and its performances illustrated with experimental observations of different plasma scenarios. Neutron count rates in the range 0.1–1.5 MHz are routinely observed allowing time resolutions as high as 1 ms with a statistical uncertainty less than 10% and an energy threshold of 0.5 MeV. Examples of the effect of plasma instabilities on the neutron emission are presented. The good results obtained will be used for the design of the neutron flux camera monitor for MAST Upgrade.
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| 5. |
- Eriksson, Benjamin, et al.
(författare)
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TOFu : A fully digital data acquisition system upgrade for the neutron time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 1049
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- TOFOR is a time-of-flight (TOF) neutron spectrometer located at the Joint European Torus (JET) with a vertical sightline of the JET plasma. It consists of 5 start (denoted S1) and 32 stop (denoted S2) plastic scintillation detectors which can be used in coincidence to generate a TOF spectrum. Spectroscopic analysis of the neutron TOF spectra produced by the JET plasma is regularly performed to determine, e.g., the fuel ion ratio and the presence of fast ion species in the fusion plasma. TOFOR has been upgraded with a new digital data acquisition (DAQ) system, denoted TOFu, which consists of 10 waveform digitizers with a total of 40 channels, 37 of which are connected to the photomultiplier output of the different S1 and S2 detectors. This paper presents a technical overview of the TOFu system and describes the offline analysis capabilities of TOFu which were not available with the previous DAQ system. Two experimental JET discharges are studied and used to show that the signal-to-background ratio is improved by almost 200% for the 2.5 MeV neutron signal and almost 400% for the 14 MeV neutron signal using the new offline analysis capabilities.
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| 6. |
- 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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| 7. |
- 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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| 8. |
- Obryk, B., et al.
(författare)
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TLD calibration for neutron fluence measurements at JET fusion facility
- 2018
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : ELSEVIER. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 904, s. 202-213
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Measurements of neutron streaming through penetrations in biological shields are being carried out at JET fusion device by means of thermoluminescence (TL) detectors with the objective to validate the neutronics codes and nuclear data widely applied in ITER nuclear analyses in a real fusion environment. TLDs response due to the neutron component of the radiation field is related to the neutron fluence in a well-defined neutron energy spectrum. Therefore, a TLDs calibration in real fusion radiation fields is necessary to allow neutron fluence from TL measurements at JET to be more precisely calculated. Hence, a MCP-N and MCP-7 TLDs produced at the IFJ PAN in Krakow were calibrated at the ENEA facilities of Frascati and Casaccia laboratories. The obtained results have been analysed and new calibration factors are proposed. The detection system based on TLDs developed and calibrated for JET experiments can then be generally applied not only to fusion neutron fields, but also to ITER to monitor the neutron fluence outside the biological shield.
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| 9. |
- 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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| 10. |
- 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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