A comparative study on experimental and simulation responses of CR-39 to neutron spectra from a ²⁵²Cf source

A simulation of the interaction of neutrons emitted from a 252Cf source with a CR-39 detector is presented in this paper. Elastic and inelastic neutron interactions occur with the constituent materials of the CR-39 detector. Inelastic scatterings only consider (n, a) and (n, p) reactions. Fast neutrons tracks are, mainly, produced by recoil particle tracks in the plastic nuclear track detector as a result of the elastic scattering reaction of neutrons with the constituent materials of the solid-state nuclear track detectors, especially hydrogen nuclei. The energy of the neutron, incident position, direction, and type of interaction were sampled by the Monte Carlo method. The energy threshold, critical angle and scattering angle to the detector surface normal were the most important factors considered in our calculations. The energy deposited per neutron mass unit was calculated. The angular response was determined by both Monte Carlo simulation and experimental results. The number of visible proton tracks and energy deposited per neutron per visible track were calculated and simulated. The threshold energy of the recoil proton as a function of the thickness and incident proton angles was measured by the etchable range of protons at scattering angles, along with the shape and diameter of the track. Experimental and simulations result were in good agreement.