High flux neutron generators form the backbone of our four-phase mission. Our powerful accelerator-based fusion neutron generators are essential to our use of innovative, sustainable fusion technology to solve today’s problems, providing a powerful alternative neutron source for a wide range of research and development techniques which require high neutron fluxes.
Historically, non-power-generating nuclear reactors have been the primary high-flux neutron source for these purposes. However, the number of research reactors in operation has been steadily declining over the years, as they are being shut down due to old age or regulatory reasons with no new nuclear reactors under construction to replace them. Our high-yield, high-flux neutron generators have been designed as an efficient, sustainable alternative neutron source for advanced industrial inspection and medical isotope production.
What Is a High Flux Neutron Generator?
A high flux neutron generator is a neutron generator designed not only to create large amounts of neutrons, but also to maximize the amount of neutrons delivered through a specific area. For many applications, knowing that a neutron generator can produce a high neutron flux is more important than simply knowing that it has a high neutron yield.
Our DD (deuterium-deuterium) neutron sources are capable of powering a thermal flux system with relatively large cavities (~100×11 cm) with uniform thermal flux as a high as 108 n/cm2/sec.
What Is Neutron Flux?
The total neutron yield of a neutron source, or the amount of neutrons produced per second by the source, is not always the most valuable metric for determining a neutron source’s output. Neutron flux, on the other hand, shows how many neutrons pass through a given region of space per second (neutrons per square centimeter per second). This is a critical distinction in many applications in which only a very small amount of the total neutron yield (namely, neutrons traveling in the correct direction, and in thermal neutrons’ case, the neutrons at the correct energy level) counts toward the effective neutron flux.
What Is Neutron Fluence?
Neutron fluence is a term related to neutron flux, but frequently confused with it. It is common for people looking for neutron generators to confuse yield, flux, and fluence.
If you run a neutron generator for one minute, the neutron flux shows how many neutrons pass through a certain area in one second. The neutron fluence shows how many neutrons pass through that area over the course of the entire minute.
And the neutron yield shows how many neutrons are generated in total in one second.
- Neutron Yield: neutrons per second
- Neutron Fluence: neutrons per square centimeter
- Neutron Flux: neutrons per square centimeter per second
What’s the Difference Between Thermal Neutrons and Fast Neutrons?
Your typical neutron has an energy of 1 MeV or more. High-energy neutrons such as those used for fast neutron imaging have up to 16 MeV. Even higher energies of neutrons are used for purposes such as certain space applications. Sometimes, though, you need to have neutrons that have been slowed down to a much lower energy state. Because these neutrons have so little energy (roughly 0.025 eV, nearly ten thousand times less energy than an average neutron) that they have reached a state of thermal equilibrium, we call them thermal neutrons.
Different neutron energies and temperatures have their own unique applications. Useful neutron temperatures for various purposes include:
- Cold neutrons
- Thermal neutrons
- Epithermal neutrons
- Fast neutrons
- Ultrafast neutrons
Are All of Our Neutron Generators High Flux?
All of our neutron generators are high-yield neutron generators. Are they all high flux neutron generators as well?
Yes.
All of our neutron sources are high flux neutron generators capable of projecting a consistent neutron flux across a wide area, making them ideal neutron sources for applications requiring a larger irradiation area, such as neutron-based advanced industrial inspection.
Not all neutron generators that are high-yield are high flux. Conversely, not all neutron generators that are high flux are also high-yield. Some neutron generators are designed to provide a high neutron flux, but only over a very small area and for a brief period of time, without providing a high neutron yield; some neutron generators are designed to provide a high yield but cannot focus a large amount of neutrons into a given area efficiently.
When it comes to measuring neutron production, the distinction between high yield and high flux is an important one to make. A neutron generator with a low neutron yield may be able to produce a high neutron flux, but only in a very small area. If an application of our neutron sources requires a massive flux such as advanced industrial inspection, for example, our system must produce a neutron flux that is more or less consistent over the entire object imaging and not just in a circle with a diameter of a few millimeters.
How We Make Neutrons
Our high flux neutron generators create neutrons using an accelerator and isotopes of hydrogen. In particular, we use deuterium, which is hydrogen with an added neutron in its nucleus, and tritium, which is hydrogen with two extra neutrons.
Our compact accelerator produces an intense beam of deuterium ions, which have been stripped of their electrons to give them a positive electrical charge. Since the ion beam has a positive charge, we can use electromagnets to accelerate the ions at high speeds, coax the beam into shape, and control its diameter as we fire it directly into a target.
The plasma ion beam from our neutron generator systems
In neutron sources, the target is a solid or gaseous material containing large amounts of deuterium or tritium, or a deuterium tritium gas mixture. Solid targets are made up of various metals layered together and heavily laced with the hydrogen isotope of choice. Gas targets, on the other hand, can consist solely of deuterium or tritium, making them much more efficient for promoting a DD and DT fusion reaction. While some of our high-yield neutron generator systems use solid targets, our highest yield systems use gas targets. The neutron output from a solid target can be ten times weaker than a gas target for the same beam current and energy!
When the ion beam collides with the target, the deuterium ions in the beam collide with the deuterium or tritium atoms in the target with enough energy that they fuse into new elements, resulting in neutron emission. Every fusion reaction leaves behind free neutrons, subatomic remnants of the original atoms which no longer have a place in the resultant element, imbued with leftover energy from the reaction. These free neutrons comprise the neutron radiation our neutron generators produce.
The free neutrons exit the neutron source at various energy levels ranging from their neutron birth energy (the neutron energy imparted to them in the reaction) to birth energy plus acceleration energy (if the neutrons are traveling forward) or birth energy minus acceleration energy (if the neutrons bounce backward). In a DD reaction, for example, the band of neutron energy can be 2.5 MeV ± 300 keV.
To create low-energy thermal neutrons, we connect a moderator to the neutron generator filled with material that will slow the neutrons produced by our ion beam. When the neutrons enter the moderator, they run into heavy water (water in which every molecule contains deuterium instead of hydrogen), which absorbs energy from the neutrons as they collide with molecule after molecule. By the time the neutrons exit the moderator, they have lost most of their energy and cooled to thermal equilibrium, making them ideal for applications such as neutron imaging.
What Is a High Flux Neutron Generator Used For?
Neutron generators optimized for high neutron flux are important for any application involving thermal neutrons, neutron activation analysis, and applications such as neutron radiography which only use a small fraction of the total neutron yield.
High Flux Neutron Generators for Advanced Industrial Inspection
A high neutron flux (as well as a high yield) is necessary for both thermal and fast neutron imaging. In neutron imaging, all the neutrons used to create the image need to be traveling an orderly neutron beam in order to create a sharp, clear image.
Our sister company Phoenix uses techniques and technology developed by SHINE to produce ASTM Category I neutron images. ASTM Category I images are the highest image quality level specified by ASTM E545, the gold standard for defining the quality of neutron radiographs.
High flux neutron generators for medical isotope production
Our medical isotope production system relies on our DT neutron generators to produce critical radioisotopes such as molybdenum-99 and lutetium-177 that enable tens of thousands of critical diagnostic and therapeutic procedures around the world every day. Using our accelerator-driven beam-target systems to produce neutrons, we can produce these radioisotopes with less waste byproduct and a smaller footprint to existing production techniques for radioactive isotopes, all in a way fully compatible with the existing supply chain.
Future applications of high flux neutron generators
As we continue to scale up the capabilities of our high-flux neutron generator technology, we believe that our neutron production technology will also have applied nuclear science applications in nuclear waste recycling and fusion energy research.
