AmBe Source Replacement via Dense Plasma Focus Z-Pinch

Year
2016
Author(s)
A. Povilus - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
M. Crank - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
S. Falabella - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
D. Higginson - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
S. Jiang - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
A. Link - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
B. Shaw - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
A. Schmidt - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Abstract
A dense plasma focus (DPF) is a compact plasma gun that can produce intense, high energy ion beams up to multiple MeV through strong potential gradients formed from instabilities during an implosion phase. These ion beams could be used to replace radiological sources for a variety of applications. To demonstrate feasibility of this concept, we use a 2kJ DPF as a replacement for an AmBe neutron source by accelerating helium into a beryllium target. Although the alpha energy spectrum from a DPF is broad, and the alphas emitted from a radiological americium source are monoenergetic (5.5 MeV), the expected neutron spectra are similar. We report on adjustments made to the DPF platform to improve performance with helium gas operation and the observation of ~ 1.0e5 peak neutrons generated per shot.