Measurement of the neutron detection sensitivity of a liquid in metastable states.

A device able to trap a liquid droplet in a host liquid in a metastable (superheated) state was developed for a better understanding of the operational principles and for an extension of the application of superheated drop detectors (SDDs). Droplets of trans-2-butene in a metastable state were exposed to Am-Be neutrons and evaporation of the droplets was observed. By measuring lifetime distributions of irradiated droplets, neutron sensitivities were derived from the distributions. The sensitivities were compared with calculations and experiments performed by using superheated emulsions. Results are discussed related to the model of radiation induced vaporisation on which the operational principles of superheated emulsions were based. The experiments in this study showed that the device developed could be applied to measure radiation sensitivities of different kinds of liquids for different kinds of radiations without any special detector preparation.