Study of coded source neutron imaging based on a compact accelerator

Abstract

Compact accelerator based neutron source has lower cost and better flexibility than nuclear reactor. Neutron imaging using such a neutron source has attracted more and more attention in recent years, in spite of its relatively low neutron fluence. In order to keep a definite neutron flux above a reasonable level on a compact accelerator based neutron imaging system, one could not set the collimation ratio to be as high as the reactor neutron source to obtain a high resolution. Coded source could increase the collimation ratio without reducing the neutron flux much. It may benefit neutron imaging system in the case of low yield neutron source. Since 2005, several laboratories in Germany and USA have carried out simulation and experiments of coded source neutron imaging. Those experiments are based on the reactor neutron sources, which have high neutron yield and low scattered neutron background. Recently, a preliminary coded source neutron imaging experiment was carried out on PKUNIFTY (Peking University Neutron Imaging Facility), which is based on a 2 MeV deuteron RFQ accelerator. It is the first time that coded source neutron imaging has been applied to an accelerator-based neutron source. Projections of coded neutron source are taken with a neutron yield of 2.6×1011 s-1. With Wiener filter deconvolution and Lucy-Richardson maximum likelihood iteration algorithm, the experimental projections are reconstructed successfully. Because the accumulated neutron fluence is low and the neutron background is high, the signal-to-noise ratio of reconstructed images is not good enough, which will be improved by reducing the neutron background.