https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01674-7
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
The CERN n_TOF NEAR station for astrophysics- and application-related neutron activation measurements
1
University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
2
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
3
ENEA, Bologna, Italy
4
INFN, Sez. di Bari, Bari, Italy
5
Instituto de Física Corpuscular, CSIC, Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
6
Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Torino, Turin, Italy
7
INFN, Sez. di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
8
National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
9
Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
10
INFN and Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
11
INFN, Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Catania, Italy
12
University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland
13
University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
14
CEA Irfu, Université Paris-Saclay, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
15
Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Măgurele, Romania
16
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
17
University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago, Spain
18
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Terrassa, Spain
19
INFN, Sez. di Trieste, Trieste, Italy
20
INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Trieste, Italy
21
INFN, Sez. di Torino, Turin, Italy
22
Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain
23
INFN, Sez. di Perugia, Perugia, Italy
24
INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Teramo, Teramo, Italy
25
Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany
26
Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal
27
Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Bundesallee 100, 38116, Braunschweig, Germany
28
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), Villigen, Switzerland
29
ENEA, Frascati, Italy
30
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Dubna, Russia
31
University of Granada, Granada, Spain
32
INFN, Sez. di Roma, Rome, Italy
33
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Geel, Belgium
34
University of York, York, United Kingdom
35
TU Wien, Atominstitut, Stadionallee 2, 1020, Wien, Austria
36
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Dresden, Germany
37
Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), Tokai-Mura, Japan
38
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
39
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
40
Dip. Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
41
INFN, Laboratori Nazionali Legnaro, Legnaro, Italy
42
Dip. Interateneo di Fisica, Università di Bari, Bari, Italy
43
CNR, Bari, Bari, Italy
44
INFN, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati, Italy
45
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
46
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
47
Istituto Nazionale Fisica Nucleare, Sez. di Catania, Catania, Italy
Received:
14
March
2025
Accepted:
25
August
2025
Published online:
23
September
2025
A new experimental area, the NEAR station, has recently been built at the CERN n_TOF facility, at a short distance from the spallation target (3 m). The new area, characterized by a neutron beam of very high flux, has been designed with the purpose of performing activation measurements of interest for astrophysics and various applications. The beam is transported from the spallation target to the NEAR station through a hole in the shielding wall of the target, inside which a collimator is inserted. The new area is complemented with a 
-ray spectroscopy laboratory, the GEAR station, equipped with a high-efficiency HPGe detector, for the measurement of the activity resulting from irradiation of a sample in the NEAR station. The use of a moderator/filter assembly is envisaged, in order to produce a neutron beam with quasi-Maxwellian energy distribution, of different thermal energies, necessary for the determination of Maxwellian Averaged Cross Sections of astrophysical interest. A new fast-cycling activation technique is also being investigated for measurements of reactions leading to isotopes of very short half life.
© The Author(s) 2025
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
