Cylindrical IEC Fusion Neutron Source for Broad Area NAA

Abstract

The development of a unique long cylindrical neutron source for broad area neutron activation analysis (NAA) is presented. This source uses inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) to produce 2.54 MeV D-D or 14.1 MeV D-T fusion neutrons. The IEC offers a variety of applications ranging from security inspection stations to driven-subcritical research assemblies. This IEC design uses a biased grid to initial in a unique “star” mode plasma discharge creating beam-background gas (target) fusion reactions. They routinely produce ∼108 2.54 MeV D-D neutrons/s at steady state. Pulsed operation has achieved upto 109 n/s. (∼1011 n/s if a deuterium mixture is used). Indeed, a version of the IEC has been commercially produced as a portable neutron source for industrial NAA applications. While that IEC source used spherical geometry, the present work uses a cylindrical version which provides a unique long “linelike” neutron source for use in the present broad area NAA system.