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| Home > Publications database > High Current Accelerator-driven Neutron Sources - The HBS project for a next generation neutron facility |
| Talk (non-conference) (Invited) | FZJ-2025-02727 |
2025
Abstract: Accelerator-driven neutron sources offer a cost-effective alternative to traditional sources such as fission reactors and spallation sources. The advent of high-current proton accelerator systems has given rise to a new class of neutron facility, termed High-Current Accelerator-driven Neutron Sources (HiCANS), which has unique properties and capabilities.The High-Brilliance Neutron Source (HBS) project at Forschungszentrum Jülich is developing a HiCANS facility. It uses a linear accelerator with a pulsed proton beam and a peak current of up to 100 mA to provide customised proton pulses at variable frequencies to optimised target stations. These target stations are more compact than spallation neutron sources because low-energy nuclear reactions release neutrons from a high-power tantalum target. This allows for efficient neutron production, moderation and extraction, enabling competitive neutron instrument performance.A detailed Technical Design Report (TDR) has been published describing all the relevant components, from the accelerator and target to the moderators and instruments. It demonstrates the potential of a national neutron source facility with up to 24 instruments for a variety of applications. A target station prototype was built at a 45 MeV cyclotron and brought into operation producing first neutrons in December 2022. Experiments demonstrated the accessibility and flexibility of this new type of source and allowed the expected performance to be evaluated. The first stage, HBS-I, is planned to have a proton energy of 20 MeV, a neutron yield of 10¹⁵ n/s, and five instruments at a single target station: SANS, a reflectometer, a diffractometer, an imaging instrument and a PGNAA instrument.I will present the current status of the High-Brilliance Neutron Source (HBS) HiCANS project, as well as the next steps and milestones for this next-generation neutron source.
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