A team of eight scientists and technicians in the Neutron Sciences Directorate has won a prestigious R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine for developing a highly efficient new detector system that helps take pressure off dwindling worldwide supplies of 3He as an active neutron converter.
The award was for development of the wavelength-shifting scintillator neutron detector (WLS), which uses 6Li as a neutron convertor instead of the conventional 3He. The annual R&D 100s, now in their 50th year, recognize the 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the market over the past year.
The award goes to Lloyd Clonts, Ronald Cooper (retired), Lowell Crow, Yacouba Diawara, Bruce Hannan, Jason Hodges, Richard Riedel, and Cai-Lin Wang of NScD. The team developed the detector in partnership with PartTec, Ltd., of Bloomington, Indiana. The award is one of nine R&D 100s won at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2012.
“The detector has been in development for 8 years,” said Diawara, the detector group leader at NScD. “When we started this project, there was no concern about the availability of 3He.
