Liquid scintillators as neutron diagnostic tools for fusion plasmas : System characterization and data analysis

Sammanfattning: The neutrons produced in fusion devices carry information about various properties of the ions that are reacting in the machine. Measurements of the neutron flux and energy distribution can therefore be used to study the behaviour of the plasma ions under different experimental conditions.Several neutron detection techniques are available, each having advantages and disadvantages compared to the others. In this thesis we study neutron measurements performed with NE213 liquid scintillators. One advantage of NE213s compared to other neutron detection techniques is that they are simple to use, small and cheap. On the other hand, their response to neutrons makes the extraction of information about the neutron energy less precise.In the thesis we present the development of methods for the characterization and the data analysis of NE213 detectors. The work was performed using two instruments installed at the Joint European Torus (JET) tokamak in the UK: the “Afterburner” detector, which is an NE213 installed on a tangential line of sight, and the neutron camera, which is a system composed of 19 NE213 detectors installed on different lines of sight (10 horizontal and 9 vertical).The analysis of data from the Afterburner detector was focused on resolving different features of the neutron energy spectra which are related to different properties of the ion velocity distribution.The analysis of data from the neutron camera was directed towards the investigation of the spatial distribution of ions in the plasma. However, the individual characterization of the camera detectors allowed the inclusion of information about the energy distribution of the ions in the analysis.The outcomes of the studies performed indicate that the methods developed give reliable results and can therefore be applied to extract information about the plasma ions. In particular, the possibility of performing neutron emission spectroscopy analysis in each line of sight of a neutron camera is of great value for future studies.