Development of an MPPC-based gamma-ray detector onboard a radiation source imager under high-dose environments and initial performance results

Tomoya Mizuno*, Makoto Arimoto, Daichi Sato, Kotaro Yoshiura, Takahiro Tomoda, Kairi Ishiguro, Jun Kataoka, Tatsuya Sawano, Daisuke Yonetoku, Shinsuke Terazawa, Satoshi Shiota

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Since the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant ∼10 years ago, various studies have been conducted focusing on the decontamination of radioactive materials and the decommissioning of the remains of the reactor. It is crucial to identify the locations of radioactive materials for the decontamination of a building that is exposed to high radiation doses. One of the most widely used methods is the visualization of gamma rays with energy information using a photon-counting imager. However, the existing imagers have limited functionality, making it difficult to implement them in such an environment. Therefore, we have developed a novel pinhole gamma imager containing multi-pixel photon counters (MPPCs) combined with fast scintillators, which are processed using fast signal-processing analog and digital large integrated circuits under high-dose environments. The two-dimensional sensor array developed in this study can obtain incident gamma-ray photon energies with a counting rate of a few MHz/mm2. Furthermore, we were able to perform two-dimensional gamma-ray imaging of an extremely strong radiation source of 60Co with ∼45 TBq, by combining the sensor array with the dedicated tungsten collimator and housing.

Keywords

  • Gamma rays
  • High dose
  • MPPC
  • Photon counting

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
  • Instrumentation

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