Eur. Phys. J. A (2019) 55: 162
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2019-12848-5

Special Article - New Tools and Techniques

Physical design and evaluation of a high-intensity accelerator-based D-D/D-T fusion neutron source

¹ School of Nuclear Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, 730000, Lanzhou, China
² Engineering Research Center for Neutron Application, Ministry of Education, Lanzhou University, 730000, Lanzhou, China
³ Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 730000, Lanzhou, China

^* e-mail: weizheng@lzu.edu.cn

Received: 19 March 2019
Accepted: 2 August 2019
Published online: 26 September 2019

Abstract

A high-intensity accelerator-based D-D/D-T fusion neutron source (ZF-400) with a thick adsorption target is designed with an intensity of n/s. A high-current microwave ion source is used to produce a large current deuteron beam, and neutrons are generated by irradiating the deuteron beam on a deuterium-adsorption target or tritium-adsorption target. According to the particle-in-cell (PIC) code, the length of the whole high-current D⁺ beam transport line is 500cm, the D⁺ beam transfer efficiency is up to 96%, and various components can match each other. On the rotating target, the D⁺ beam spot size is about 20.0 mm with energy of 450 keV. Based on the heat conduction theory, the thick adsorption rotating target with water-cooling can withstand the D⁺ ions beam with 450 kV/50 mA and ensure that the temperature is less than 200 ^°C. According to the multi-layer computing model, neutron energy spectra, angular distributions and yields for the thick target can be calculated with remarkable precision. The neutron energy spectra are non-mono-energetic neutrons for the ZF-400 neutron generator, the neutron angular distributions are anisotropic distributions, and they can provide neutrons with an intensity of n/s (D-D) and n/s (D-T), respectively, with the deuteron of 450 keV/50 mA.