New coating process employing enriched Boron increases neutron straw detector sensitivity by factor of 6.7! Our first series of coating runs utilizing enriched boron were completed and straw material subsequently fabricated in 2008. A section of this enriched straw material, along with an equal length of typical natural boron material formerly used for example in our portable neutron detector were constructed into two independent, single straw detectors for performance evaluations. These detectors were placed in a fixture which positions them parallel and 1cm apart, as shown in the figure below. Each detector was evaluated for detection of thermal neutrons by operating each with the same set of electronics and within the same neutron field, generated by a small ²⁵²Cf source equipped with a plastic thermalizer. The intensity of the field was characterized with a commercially available BF₃ counter. The enriched straw material produced 6.7 times increased sensitivity over the natural boron straw, shown in the spectra below. The enhancement in sensitivity expected by replacing natural boron with enriched boron containing > 96% ¹⁰B, is 5.0 since natural boron contains 20% ¹⁰B. The additional increment to 6.7 was achieved by slight increase of the coating thickness from 0.75 µm utilized in our natural boron straws to a closer to ideal thickness of 1.0 µm. This milestone will provide a quantum leap enhancement in our neutron straw detector technologies, providing more than a 5 fold increase in stopping power and commensurately increased detection efficiency. More information on our neutron detector technologies can be found here