Study of tagged neutron method with laboratory D-T neutron generator for explosive detection

Tagged neutron-based experimental system has been developed with a laboratory D-T neutron generator at BARC. The system can identify the C, N, O elemental signatures from an interrogated object (explosive or benign) using the Associated Particle Technique (also known as tagged neutron method) employing alpha–gamma coincidence and time-of-flight methodology. The system consists of a matrix of 64-pixel YAP:Ce α-particle detectors incorporated in the neutron generator and a BGO (3″ × 3″) gamma detector. Main parameters of the system were investigated, and its performance was evaluated through various experiments performed at laboratory environment. The experimental results of pure element spectra (graphite for Carbon, water for Oxygen), complex sample (melamine) spectrum and study of explosive simulant (RDX) spectrum have demonstrated the successful implementation of the tagged neutron method.