Francesco Piscitelli

Dr. Francesco Piscitelli is a postdoc expert in thermal neutron detectors at the Detector Group of the European Spallation Source. He has specialised in alternative technologies to face the He-3 shortage.

Between 2011 and 2014, he was based at ILL where he carried out his PhD in Physics from the University of Perugia (Italy). Previously, he had carried out his Master degree in Physics at ILL with the Università di Roma Tor Vergata. During his master thesis he worked on a Camera Anger type neutron detector for high spatial resolution applications also at ILL. 

During the past years he has dedicated his work to one of the major current issues in neutron detection: alternative solutions to the scarce He-3.  He tackled both the problem of He-3 replacement for large area applications and the performance enhancements for small area high resolution and high rate detectors. He has built and tested several detectors based on B-10 converter layers. He developed an analytical model to increase the B-10-based detector performances. He also helped to quantify the neutron to γ-ray discrimination, and contributed with measurements and data analysis to the quantification of the γ-ray sensitivity of B-10-based detectors to demonstrate the reliability of this new technology.

• Thermal neutron detectors
• Experimental physics
• Beam monitoring
• Advanced detector systems