title: The CASCADE 10B thermal neutron detector and soil moisture sensing by cosmic-ray neutrons
creator: Köhli, Markus Otto
subject: ddc-530
subject: 530 Physics
subject: ddc-550
subject: 550 Earth sciences
description: This work connects the three domains of experimental nuclear physics, computational physics and environmental physics centered around the neutron.   The CASCADE thermal neutron detector is based on a combination of solid 10B coatings in several layers, GEMs as gas amplification stages, a microstructured readout, multichannel ASICs and FPGA hardware triggered data acquisition. The detailed analysis to improve the system in terms of time-of-flight resolution for Neutron Resonance Spin Echo Spectroscopy required for a simulation model of the detector. The limitations of existing codes led to the development of the Monte Carlo transport code URANOS, which fully integrates the detector components and features a voxel-based geometry definition. The simulation could then successfully be applied to precisely understand neutron transport within the frame of Cosmic-Ray Neutron Sensing.  This novel and interdisciplinary method offers the possibility to non-invasively measure soil moisture on the hectare scale using neutrons of the environmental radiation. The endeavor of this work led to the development of the footprint weighting function, which describes the neutron density change by different hydrogen pools in the air-ground interface. Significant influences of the near-field topology around the sensor were predicted by this work, experimentally verified and correction methods were successfully tested.
date: 2019
type: Dissertation
type: info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserverhttps://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/26969/1/Thesis_Koehli_pdfa.pdf
identifier: DOI:10.11588/heidok.00026969
identifier: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-269692
identifier:   Köhli, Markus Otto  (2019) The CASCADE 10B thermal neutron detector and soil moisture sensing by cosmic-ray neutrons.  [Dissertation]     
relation: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/26969/
rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights: Please see front page of the work (Sorry, Dublin Core plugin does not recognise license id)
language: eng