Photoneutron yield for an electron beam on tantalum and erbium deuteride

• DOI: 10.1016/j.net.2024.03.007
• Publication Date: 2024-04-08T11:28:25Z
• Authors: Andrew K. Gillespie; Cuikun Lin; R.V. Duncan
• Keywords: Electron beam; Accelerator Physics (physics.acc-ph); Erbium deuteride; Neutron generator; TK9001-9401; Nuclear engineering. Atomic power; FOS: Physical sciences; Metal hydride; Physics - Accelerator Physics; Photoneutron; Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph); 7. Clean energy; Physics - Computational Physics

An electron beam may be used to generate bremsstrahlung photons that go on to create photoneutrons within metals. This serves as a low-energy neutron source for irradiation experiments [1-3]. In this article, we present simulation results for optimizing photoneutron yield for a 10-MeV electron beam on tantalum foil and erbium deuteride (ErD$_3$). The thickness of the metal layers was varied. A tantalum foil thickness of 1.5 mm resulted in the most photons reaching the second metal layer. When a second metal layer of ErD$_3$ was included, the photoneutron yield increased with the thickness of the secondary layer. When the electron beam was directly incident upon a layer of ErD$_3$, the photoneutron yield did not differ significantly from the yield when a layer of tantalum was included. The directional photoneutron yield reached a maximum level when the thickness of the ErD$_3$ layer was around 12 cm. About 1 neutron was generated per $10^4$ source electrons. When using a 2-mA beam current, it is possible to generate up to $10^{ 12}$ neutrons per second, making this combination a relatively-inexpensive neutron generator.<br/>15 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables<br/>