SBIR-STTR Award

Lithium Innovations will explore the fabrication of a prototype, low-cost neutron detector based on a Li-6 sensitized cadmium-telluride semiconductor detector. The detector will be demonstrated to have high sensitivity to thermal neutrons, be very robust and configured as a pager neutron detector. The effort will build on Lithium Innovations unique expertise in forming lithium sheets for sputter targets in the glass industry and in supplying Li-6 sensitizer foils to R&D groups for neutron conversion into alpha particles and tritons. The project will leverage the recent development by subcontractor, Lucintech Inc, of thin-film, sputtered CdTe photovoltaic solar cells and modules. The detector design will also take advantage of recently developed flexible glass produced by Corning Incorporated. The thin, flexible glass will permit light weight detectors even for larger, more sensitive sizes. The detector is based on polycrystalline CdTe which provides much higher radiation hardness than Si-based detectors. Prototypes will be fabricated with processes scalable to large areas which opens the potential for large-area neutron detectors and low-cost manufacturing.

In this Phase II SBIR project, Lithium Innovations, in partnership with Lucintech Inc, will build on the success of its innovative thin-film neutron detector developed and tested in Phase I. The detector is based on the use of a metallic lithium-6 sensitizer layer paired with a thin-film CdS/CdTe heterojunction to detect the alpha and triton charged particles produced by the n + Li-6 reaction. This patent-pending detector has high sensitivity to thermal neutrons and extremely low sensitivity to gamma rays; it is light weight, robust, impervious to pressure variations, not susceptible to microphonics, operates at low voltage, and is scalable to large areas. In Phase I, Lithium Innovations has confirmed low-noise operation of these detectors with area greater than 5 sq.cm. and gamma rejection of greater than one million. In Phase II our team will extend its Phase I success to develop a portable neutron detector package in a small, hand-held configuration with neutron sensitivity of approximately 10 counts/(neutron/sq.cm.). The advances made in Phase I from DNDO have fully leveraged the combined technology of Lithium Innovations for handling and processing isotopically enriched Li-6 and the technology of Lucintech Inc for fabricating monolithically integrated thin-film solar modules. This innovative technology will be demonstrated to deliver a new generation of neutron detectors that will revolutionize the field of thermal neutron detection, monitoring, and imaging.