Automated method of tracing proton tracks in nuclear emulsions

Abstract The low performance of the manual recognition of proton-recoil tracks in nuclear emulsions has limited its application to energy spectrum measurement of a pulsed neutron source. We developed an automated microscope system to trace proton-recoil tracks in nuclear emulsions. Given a start point on the proton track of interest, the microscope system can automatically trace and record the entire track using an image processing algorithm. Tests indicate that no interaction of the operator is needed in tracing the entire track. This automated microscope greatly reduces the labor of the operator and increases the efficiency of track data collection in nuclear emulsion.