Study on secondary electron suppression in compact D–D neutron generator

A compact D–D neutron generator, with a peak neutron yield of D–D reactions up to 2.48×10~8 n/s is being developed at Lanzhou University in China for application in real-time neutron activation analysis. During tests, the problem of back acceleration of secondary electrons liberated from the neutron production target by deuterium ions bombardment was encountered. In this study,an electric field method and a magnetic field method for suppressing secondary electrons are designed and experimentally investigated. The experimental results show that the electric field method is superior to the magnetic field method. Effective suppression of the secondary electrons can be achieved via electrostatic suppression when the bias voltage between the target and the extraction-accelerating electrode is >204 V. Furthermore, the secondary electron emission coefficient for the mixed deuterium ion(D_1^+,D_2^+, and D_3^+) impacting on molybdenum is estimated. In the deuterium energy range of 80–120 keV, the estimated secondary electron emission coefficients are approximately 5–5.5 for the mixed deuterium ion glancing incidence of 45° and approximately 3.5–3.9 for the mixed deuterium ion normal incidence.

Monte Carlo simulation of fast neutron-induced fission of 237Np

The potential-driving model is used to describe the driving potential distribution and to calculate the preneutron emission mass distributions for different incident energies in the 237 Np(n, f)reaction. The potential-driving model is implemented in Geant4 and used to calculate the fission-fragment yield distributions, kinetic energy distributions, fission neutron spectrum and the total nubar for the 237 Np(n, f)reaction. Compared with the built-in G4 ParaFissionModel, the calculated results from the potential-driving model are in better agreement with the experimental data and evaluated data. Given the good agreement with the experimental data, the potential-driving model in Geant4 can describe well the neutron-induced fission of actinide nuclei, which is very important for the study of neutron transmutation physics and the design of a transmutation system.

Measurements of neutron energy spectra of 9Be(d,n)10B reaction with a thick beryllium target

Novel measurements of the neutron energy spectra of the 9Be(d,n)10B reaction with a thick beryllium target are performed using a fast neutron time-of-flight(TOF)spectrometer for the neutron emission angles θ=0°and 45°,and the incident deuteron energies are 250 and 300 keV,respectively.The neutron contributions from the 9Be(d,n)10B reaction are distributed relatively independently for the ground state and the first,second,and third excited states of 10B.The branching ratios of the 9Be(d,n)10B reaction for the different excited states of 10B are obtained for the neutron emission angles θ=0°and 45°,and the incident deuteron energies are 250 and 300 keV,respectively.The branching ratio of the 9Be(d,n)10B reaction for the third excited state decreases with increase in the incident deuteron energy,and the branching ratios for the ground state and the second excited state increase with increase in the neutron emission angle.