Characterization of a Fast Neutron Irradiation Facility Using a Stilbene Scintillation Detector

This paper describes the characterization of a fast neutron facility located at Legnaro National Laboratories' Van de Graaff CN accelerator. The neutron flux is produced by the 9Be(p,xn) reactions, generated by a beryllium thick target bombarded with 5-MeV protons. An iterative unfolding algorithm combined with a pulse shape discrimination technique were used to obtain the energy distributions of the emitted neutrons at different angles and to compute the absolute neutron flux as a function of the proton current. With a proton current of 180 nA and a distance of 5 cm from the emission point, a maximum neutron flux of 2.6 × 10 6 cm−2 s−1 (±15%) was obtained.