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Numerous domains, in fundamental research as well as in applications, require the study of reactions induced by neutrons with energies from few MeV up to few tens of MeV. Reliable measurements also are necessary to improve the evaluated databases used by nuclear transport codes. This energy range covers a large number of topics like transmutation of nuclear waste, design of future fission and fusion reactors, nuclear medicine or test and development of new detectors. A new facility called Neutrons For Science (NFS) is being built for this purpose on the GANIL site at Caen (France). NFS is composed of a pulsed neutron beam for time-of-flight facility as well as irradiation stations for cross-section measurements. Neutrons will be produced by the interaction of deuteron and proton beams, delivered by the SPIRAL-2 linear accelerator, with thick or thin converters made of beryllium or lithium. Continuous and quasi-mono-energetic spectra will be available at NFS up to 40 MeV. In this fast energy region, the neutron flux is expected to be up to 2 orders of magnitude higher than at other existing time-of-flight facilities. In addition, irradiation stations for neutron-, proton- and deuteron-induced reactions will allow performing cross-section measurements by the activation technique. After a description of the facility and its characteristics, the experiments to be performed in the short and medium term will be presented.

An extended analysis of the reaction mechanisms involved within deuteron interaction with nuclei is presented. An increased attention is devoted to the breakup mechanism, all its components, namely the elastic, inelastic (fusion), and total breakup being carefully considered. Next, the direct reactions represented by the stripping and pick-up mechanisms are discussed. Finally, the pre-equilibrium and compound-nucleus contributions, corrected for the breakup, stripping, and pick-up decrease of the total reaction cross section, complete the deuteron-induced reaction cross section analysis. The overall agreement between the measured data and model calculations validates the description of nuclear mechanisms taken into account for the deuteron-nucleus interaction.

Recent accurate data obtained for the isomeric cross section of the 197Au(n, 2n) reaction provides an effective opportunity to consider the question of the effective moment of inertia of the nucleus within a consistent model analysis of all available reaction data for the 197Au target nucleus. Moreover, since the corresponding model assumptions are better validated by analysis of the data above 20-30 MeV where only several data with large uncertainties are known, the usefulness of further measurements to be performed at large-scale facilities as SPIRAL-2 and n_TOF, for incident energies up to 40 as well as 100 MeV, are underlined.

The proton and deuteron induced reactions have a great interest for the assessment of induced radioactivity of accelerator components. Such data are needed for estimation of the potential radiation hazard from the accelerating cavities and beam transport elements. Continuing previous irradiation experiments on copper, we provided two short run to obtain cross-section data for 65Cu(d, p)66Cu reaction. We carried out irradiation experiments with the variable-energy cyclotron U-120M of the Nuclear Physics Institute Řež. The stacked-foil technique was utilized. Because of a relatively short half life (T1/2 = 5, 120 min) and a strong annihilation peak, we placed the 1 cm Pb plate between the irradiated sample and the gamma-ray detector to reduce the dead time. The absolute values of cross-sections were calculated from the induced activities measured by the calibrated HPGe detector. The comparison of present results with data of other authors and prediction of different libraries and model calculation is discussed.

Recent high-precision measurements α-particle elastic scattering and (α,x) reaction cross sections has motivated the extension of a previous semi-microscopic analysis for the mass-region 50

An extended analysis of the nuclear reaction mechanisms involved in the deuterons interaction with 63,65Cu is presented. First, the available elastic-scattering data analysis provided us the optical potential for reaction cross sections calculations. An increased effort has been devoted to the breakup mechanism, both the elastic breakup and the breakup fusion contributions to the different activation cross sections being carefully considered. Next, the direct reaction contributions through the one nucleon stripping reaction cross sections have been calculated. Finally, the pre-equilibrium and compound-nucleus cross-section calculation, corrected for the breakup and stripping decrease of the total reaction cross section, completed the deuteron activation cross-section analysis. The overall agreement between the measured and calculated deuteron activation cross sections proves the correctness of the nuclear mechanisms account.