Experimental study of neutron oscillograph in ICF

This article presents an oscillograph with both high time resolution and detection efficiency used in time-resolved neutron diagnosis in ICF (inertial confinement fusion). The oscillograph, comprising a neutron cathode, a specially designed electron optical configuration and a pair of plane deflector, is similar to a streak camera in principle except that no spatial information can be obtained. A sandwich-like polyethylene-CsI-aluminium is used to convert neutron into electron beam. The electron optics system converges the electron beam excited by neutron from a wide area at the image plane. These electrons are steered transversely by a linear voltage to obtain the intensity evolution versus time. In the experiment, a neutron generator was used to test the function and the detective efficiency of the neutron cathode, resulting in a neutron beam of approximately 10 8 be recorded in total flux. Also an equivalence of the oscillograph with a multi-alkali photocathode was used to simulate its operation in dynamic mode by which the instrumental resolution is calibrated to be 40ps around in the proof-of-principle experiment.