{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113794"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113794","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Characterization of deuterated stilbene: an organic scintillator for neutron spectroscopy","abstract":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-04-06 without embargo terms","abstract_html":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-04-06 without embargo terms","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Gaughan, Natalie"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.S.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Nuclear, Plasma, Radiolgc Engr","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Di Fulvio, Angela","Heuser, Brent"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-04-29T21:34:00Z","date_published":"2022-04-29T21:34:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:53Z","subjects":["radiation detection","neutron spectroscopy","organic scintillators","deuterated scintillators","deuterated stilbene"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["©2021 by Natalie Gaughan. All rights reserved."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113794","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Di Fulvio, Angela","Heuser, Brent"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Gaughan, Natalie"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2022-04-29T21:34:00Z","2021-12","2021-07-28"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Nuclear, Plasma, Radiolgc Engr"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.S."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["radiation detection","neutron spectroscopy","organic scintillators","deuterated scintillators","deuterated stilbene"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["©2021 by Natalie Gaughan. All rights reserved."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113794"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-04-06 without embargo terms","The student, Natalie Gaughan, accepted the attached license on 2021-07-23 at 16:49.","The student, Natalie Gaughan, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2021-07-23 at 17:22.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2021-07-28 at 09:20.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17071 on 2022-04-06 at 17:08:26","Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-29T21:34:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 GAUGHAN-THESIS-2021.pdf: 61736776 bytes, checksum: 232447b158c69ad49525becba4dbcc89 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4212 bytes, checksum: bb10504740d4b5b587c2f231ac758680 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2021-07-28","Deuterated stilbene stilbene-d12 is a recently-developed organic scintillator whose neutron light output characterization in the 0.5 - 4.4. MeV energy range is reported in this thesis, for the first time. A time-of-flight experiment was performed to obtain the light output response of stilbene-d12 to quasi-monoenergetic neutrons. The light output response, which is the relationship between energy deposited by deuteron recoils produced by neutron scattering and light emitted in the scintillator, is essential to determine the incident neutron spectrum. The experimentally-obtained light output function was used to simulate the response matrix of stilbene-d12 to monoenergetic neutrons, from 0.5 to 20 MeV, using MCNPX-PoliMi. The simulated response matrix was then used to unfold the incident energy spectrum from the measured light-output response. The unfolding was performed using an iterative Bayesian method that also allows an estimation of the uncertainty associated with the unfolded spectrum. Stilbene-d12 and 1H-stilbene were both used to unfold spectra from DT and 239PuBe sources, with the spectra obtained from stilbene-d12 better resembling the ground truth spectra compared to 1H-stilbene spectra. The intrinsic efficiency of the stilbene-d12 detector to neutrons was also measured experimentally, using a 14.1 MeV DT generator as the neutron source, and it was found to be 55% ± 1%. The simulated efficiency of 56% ± 0.004% is in good agreement with the measured value. In this work, we showed that stilbene-d12 is capable of fine spectrum unfolding and displays pulse shape discrimination capability to distinguish neutron from gamma-ray pulses comparably or better than 1H-stilbene. The results of the time-of-flight experiment, which are presented in chapter 2, have also been submitted for publication in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment with the title “Characterization of stilbene-d12 for neutron spectroscopy without time of flight” by Natalie Gaughan, Jianxin Zhou, Frederick Becchetti, Ramon O.Torres-Isea, Michael Febbraro, Natalia Zaitseva, and Angela Di Fulvio."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Characterization of deuterated stilbene: an organic scintillator for neutron spectroscopy"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Di Fulvio, Angela","Heuser, Brent"],"dc:creator":["Gaughan, Natalie"],"dc:date":["2022-04-29T21:34:00Z","2021-12","2021-07-28"],"dc:description":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-04-06 without embargo terms","The student, Natalie Gaughan, accepted the attached license on 2021-07-23 at 16:49.","The student, Natalie Gaughan, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2021-07-23 at 17:22.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2021-07-28 at 09:20.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17071 on 2022-04-06 at 17:08:26","Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-29T21:34:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 GAUGHAN-THESIS-2021.pdf: 61736776 bytes, checksum: 232447b158c69ad49525becba4dbcc89 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4212 bytes, checksum: bb10504740d4b5b587c2f231ac758680 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2021-07-28","Deuterated stilbene stilbene-d12 is a recently-developed organic scintillator whose neutron light output characterization in the 0.5 - 4.4. MeV energy range is reported in this thesis, for the first time. A time-of-flight experiment was performed to obtain the light output response of stilbene-d12 to quasi-monoenergetic neutrons. The light output response, which is the relationship between energy deposited by deuteron recoils produced by neutron scattering and light emitted in the scintillator, is essential to determine the incident neutron spectrum. The experimentally-obtained light output function was used to simulate the response matrix of stilbene-d12 to monoenergetic neutrons, from 0.5 to 20 MeV, using MCNPX-PoliMi. The simulated response matrix was then used to unfold the incident energy spectrum from the measured light-output response. The unfolding was performed using an iterative Bayesian method that also allows an estimation of the uncertainty associated with the unfolded spectrum. Stilbene-d12 and 1H-stilbene were both used to unfold spectra from DT and 239PuBe sources, with the spectra obtained from stilbene-d12 better resembling the ground truth spectra compared to 1H-stilbene spectra. The intrinsic efficiency of the stilbene-d12 detector to neutrons was also measured experimentally, using a 14.1 MeV DT generator as the neutron source, and it was found to be 55% ± 1%. The simulated efficiency of 56% ± 0.004% is in good agreement with the measured value. In this work, we showed that stilbene-d12 is capable of fine spectrum unfolding and displays pulse shape discrimination capability to distinguish neutron from gamma-ray pulses comparably or better than 1H-stilbene. The results of the time-of-flight experiment, which are presented in chapter 2, have also been submitted for publication in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment with the title “Characterization of stilbene-d12 for neutron spectroscopy without time of flight” by Natalie Gaughan, Jianxin Zhou, Frederick Becchetti, Ramon O.Torres-Isea, Michael Febbraro, Natalia Zaitseva, and Angela Di Fulvio."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113794"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["©2021 by Natalie Gaughan. All rights reserved."],"dc:subject":["radiation detection","neutron spectroscopy","organic scintillators","deuterated scintillators","deuterated stilbene"],"dc:title":["Characterization of deuterated stilbene: an organic scintillator for neutron spectroscopy"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Nuclear, Plasma, Radiolgc Engr"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.S."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:53Z"}