Blowfish is a highly segmented neutron detector array consisting of 88 cells filled with BC-505 liquid scintillator. <p>The cells make up a spherical shape that covers approximately one quarter of the total solid angle of 4 pi steradians.<p> A high-priority measurement for Blowfish is the low energy contribution to the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn (GDH) sum rule on the deuteron, which uses circularly polarized gamma rays. <p>The experimental data that needs to be collected are the absolute cross-sections when the gamma ray helicity and target polarization are parallel and anti-parallel. To extract absolute cross-sections from the data, it will be necessary to have characterized the efficiency of the detector.<p>Another measurement that would benefit from the efficiency calibration is the photodistegration of deuterium, which has already been performed. This measurement used linearly-polarized gamma rays at energies of 2.6, 3.5, 4.0 and 6.0 MeV. The relative cross-sections from this measurement provide much useful information, but to extract the absolute cross-sections the Blowfish efficiency calibration is needed. This thesis presents this efficiency calibration. <p> The efficiency calibration was done using a 252Cf source in a parallel plate ionization chamber over the energy range of 0 to 6 MeV. <p>To determine the absolute scale of the extracted efficiency curves, an efficiency analysis and simulation of a previously characterized BC-519 liquid scintillator cell needed to be performed along with a simulation of the Blowfish detector array. <p>The measured efficiencies were consistent with those predicted by the simulation over the desired energy range.

Blowfish is a highly segmented neutron detector array consisting of 88 cells filled with BC-505 liquid scintillator. <p>The cells make up a spherical shape that covers approximately one quarter of the total solid angle of 4 pi steradians.<p> A high-priority measurement for Blowfish is the low energy contribution to the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn (GDH) sum rule on the deuteron, which uses circularly polarized gamma rays. <p>The experimental data that needs to be collected are the absolute cross-sections when the gamma ray helicity and target polarization are parallel and anti-parallel. To extract absolute cross-sections from the data, it will be necessary to have characterized the efficiency of the detector.<p>Another measurement that would benefit from the efficiency calibration is the photodistegration of deuterium, which has already been performed. This measurement used linearly-polarized gamma rays at energies of 2.6, 3.5, 4.0 and 6.0 MeV. The relative cross-sections from this measurement provide much useful information, but to extract the absolute cross-sections the Blowfish efficiency calibration is needed. This thesis presents this efficiency calibration. <p> The efficiency calibration was done using a 252Cf source in a parallel plate ionization chamber over the energy range of 0 to 6 MeV. <p>To determine the absolute scale of the extracted efficiency curves, an efficiency analysis and simulation of a previously characterized BC-519 liquid scintillator cell needed to be performed along with a simulation of the Blowfish detector array. <p>The measured efficiencies were consistent with those predicted by the simulation over the desired energy range.