Abstracts Book - IMRC 2018

• SB4-O001 Invited Talk
HYBRID PEROVSKITES FOR RADIATION DETECTION
Manuel Quevedo 1
1 The University of Texas at Dallas, MSE, United States.
Radiation detection has become a priority to help secure against smuggled
radioactive and special nuclear materials (SNM). Among others, SNM include
fissile materials such as uranium-233, uranium-235 and plutonium- 239, which
could be the primary ingredients of nuclear explosives [www.nrc.gov]. The
neutron emission and the gamma signature of these SNM, due to the
spontaneous fission of the nuclei, make them distinguishable other radioactive
materials with the aid of the proper detection technology. After the September
11, 2001 attacks, the US government began deploying neutron detectors based
on Helium-3 (He-3) tubes to secure the US borders. However, He-3 neutron
detectors were designed in the 1970s and have not seen a substantial upgrade
since then. Besides, He-3 is a rare isotope of helium that has experienced a
shortage due to the high demand for national security, medicine and scientific
studies. In addition, the natural abundance of He-3 is only ~1.37 ppm of all He
available. To help reduce this scarcity, the US government produces He-3 using
the nuclear decay of tritium. This is not only very expensive, but is also very slow
since it takes about 12.3 years for tritium to decay into He-3 (50%). According to
the 2010 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, the U.S. federal
government has projected that the demand for He-3 will significantly increase
in the upcoming years causing a severe disparity between supply and demand.
This report titled ÍžThe Helium-3 Shortage: Supply, Demand, and Options for
CongressÍŸ mentions that demand for He-3 can be reduced through the
development of alternative technologies for neutron detection, however such
technology is currently under development. Compared to most gas-filled or
scintillation neutron detectors, solid state neutron detectors offer the
advantages of low-power operation and the potential to be scaled to large areas
if the proper integration technology is developed. In this talk we show selective
doping of single crystal hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites to enable these
materials to be used as thermal neutron sensor materials. To enable the
perovskite materials to be sensitive to thermal neutrons the incorporation of
neutron conversion materials such as 10B and 157Gd in selected sites of the
perovskite lattice is explored. In the hybrid perovskites (ABX3) the A site is
occupied by a organic cation, the B site by a metal cation and the X site by a
halide. Our simulations indicate that to reach 100% efficiency of neutron capture