Kerri Loughney
Postgraduate Research Student
MRes
Academic and research departments
Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Radiation and Medical Physics Group.About
My research project
Investigation of the stability of Silicon Photomultiplier based gamma and neutron detectors for industrial applicationsI'm studying the ageing effects on Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) coupled to crystal scintillators for the use in gamma and neutron detectors. This includes the optimisation of light collection and energy resolution of such detectors through the wrapping of the scintillators and the optical coupling material used between scintillator and SiPM.
Supervisors
I'm studying the ageing effects on Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) coupled to crystal scintillators for the use in gamma and neutron detectors. This includes the optimisation of light collection and energy resolution of such detectors through the wrapping of the scintillators and the optical coupling material used between scintillator and SiPM.
ResearchResearch interests
Radiation Detection and Instrumentation
The Use of Cosmic Ray Muons for Imaging
Research interests
Radiation Detection and Instrumentation
The Use of Cosmic Ray Muons for Imaging
Publications
L.F. Thompson, J.P. Stowell, S.J. Fargher, C.A. Steer, K.L. Loughney, E.M. O'Sullivan, J.G. Gluyas, S.W. Blaney, R.J. Pidcock (2019) The application of muon tomography to the imaging of railway tunnels
Cosmic Ray Muon Radiography utilizes highly-penetrating cosmic ray muons to image the density profile of an object of interest. Here we report on the first trial to use a portable field-deployable cosmic ray tracking system in order to image the whole overburden of a UK railway tunnel with short duration scans (c. 30 minutes). A unknown overburden void was identified and, post-trial, confirmed by railway authorities. These experiments demonstrate the identification of hidden construction shafts with high levels of statistical significance as density anomalies within the data.