Lithium alkali halides - New thermal neutron detectors with n-γ discrimination

We are investigating two promising new families of materials derived from proven, low-cost, well-understood, versatile scintillator hosts CsI and NaI. These are modified by incorporating Li ions to achieve the desired spectroscopic properties, producing high quality, combined n/γ sensors. Specifically we report on the synthesis and characterization of Li 3 Cs 2 I 5 (LCI) and Li x Na 1−x I (LNI), both of which demonstrate pulse shape discrimination (PSD) and pulse height discrimination (PHD) for effective suppression of gamma background from neutron signals.