An experimental facility for measurement of charged particle continua arising from neutron induced reactions

Abstract A facility to measure neutron-induced charged-particle continua using beams of 25–60 MeV is described. The heart of the facility consists of the production and collimation of a neutron beam into a scattering chamber containing the target and three independent detector telescopes. Each telescope contains three elements and provides good particle identification for p, d, t, 3 He, and α. While “ E - δE ” displays are used to identify energetic particles, a time-of-flight versus pulse-height scheme is used to identify low-energy alphas (from 3–8 MeV) that stop in the first element. Good timing and energy resolution obtained with this system allow the simultaneous measurement of hydrogen and helium isotopes with a wide range of energies: from about 3–60 MeV. Corrections to measured spectra relevant to this set-up are discussed. This facility has been used to obtain extensive data on neutron-induced reactions on tissue-resident elements such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen.