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An oven for the feed of vapors from solid materials in the Superconducting Electron cyclotron Resonance ion SourcE (SERSE) has been designed, built and tested at the Laboratorio Nazionale del Sud. It is based on an electrically heated tungsten filament. In order to have a correct temperature distribution in the whole system and to lower the heating power, a finite elements code has been used for the design of busses and thermal shielding. A crucible temperature of 2000 °C has been measured by a pyrometer and a W/Re thermocouple. The tungsten filament as well as the other components have shown no significant damage, confirming the robustness and reliability of the system. Satisfactory Ni evaporation rates have been measured.

A semiconductor detector coupled with a neutron converter is a good candidate for neutron detection, especially for its compactness and reliability if compared with other devices, such as 3He tubes, even though its intrinsic efficiency is rather lower. In this paper we show a neutron detector design consisting of a 3 cm × 3 cm silicon pad detector coupled with one or two external 6LiF layers, enriched in 6Li at 95%, placed in contact with the Si active surfaces. This prototype, first characterized and tested at INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud and then at JRC Ispra, was successfully shown to detect thermal neutrons with the expected efficiency and an outstanding gamma rejection capability.