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The neutrons for science (NFS) facility is a component of SPIRAL-2, the new superconducting linear accelerator built at GANIL in Caen (France). The proton and deuteron beams delivered by the accelerator will allow producing intense neutron fields in the 100 keV-40 MeV energy range. Continuous and quasi-mono-kinetic energy spectra, respectively, will be available at NFS, produced by the interaction of a deuteron beam on a thick Be converter and by the 7Li(p,n) reaction on thin converter. The pulsed neutron beam, with a flux up to two orders of magnitude higher than those of other existing time-of-flight facilities, will open new opportunities of experiments in fundamental research as well as in nuclear data measurements. In addition to the neutron beam, irradiation stations for neutron-, proton- and deuteron-induced reactions will be available for cross-sections measurements and for the irradiation of electronic devices or biological cells. NFS, whose first experiment is foreseen in 2018, will be a very powerful tool for physics, fundamental research as well as applications like the transmutation of nuclear waste, design of future fission and fusion reactors, nuclear medicine or test and development of new detectors.

Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) requires a high resolution (∼10 μm) neutron imaging system to observe deuterium and tritium (DT) core implosion asymmetries. A new large (150 mm entrance diameter: scaled for Laser MégaJoule [P. A. Holstein, F. Chaland, C. Charpin, J. M. Dufour, H. Dumont, J. Giorla, L. Hallo, S. Laffite, G. Malinie, Y. Saillard, G. Schurtz, M. Vandenboomgaerde, and F. Wagon, Laser and Particle Beams 17, 403 (1999)]) neutron imaging detector has been developed for such ICF experiments. The detector has been fully characterized using a linear accelerator and a 60Co γ-ray source. A penumbral aperture was used to observe DT-gas-filled target implosions performed on the OMEGA laser facility. [T. R. Boehly, D. L. Brown, R. S. Craxton, R. L. Keck, J. P. Knauer, J. H. Kelly, T. J. Kessler, S. A. Kumpan, S. J. Loucks, S. A. Letzring, F. J. Marshall, R. L. McCrory, S. F. B. Morse, W. Seka, J. M. Soures, and C. P. Verdon, Opt. Commun. 133, 495 (1997)] Neutron core images of 14 MeV with a resolution of 15 μm were obtained and are compared to x-ray images of comparable resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rugby-shaped hohlraums have been proposed as a method for x-ray drive enhancement for indirectly driven capsule implosions. This concept has recently been tested in a series of shots on the OMEGA laser facility [T. R. Boehly, D. L. Brown, R. S. Craxton et al., Opt. Commun. 133, 495 (1997)]. In this paper, experimental results are presented comparing the performance of D2-filled capsules between standard cylindrical Au hohlraums and rugby-shaped hohlraums. The rugby hohlraums demonstrated 18% more x-ray drive energy as compared with the cylinders, and the high-performance design of these implosions (both cylinder and rugby) also provided ≈20× more deuterium (DD) neutrons than any previous indirectly driven campaign on OMEGA and ≈3× more than ever achieved on NOVA [E. M. Campbell, Laser Part. Beams 9, 209 (1991)] implosions driven with nearly twice the laser energy. This increase in performance enables, for the first time, a measurement of the neutron burn history and imaging of the neutron core shapes in an indirectly driven implosion. Previous DD neutron yields had been too low to register this key measurement of capsule performance and the effects of dynamic mix. A wealth of additional data on the fuel areal density from the suite of charged particle diagnostics was obtained on a subset of the shots that used D 3He rather than D2 fuel. Comparisons of the experimental results with numerical simulations are shown to be in very good agreement. The design techniques employed in this campaign, e.g., smaller laser entrance holes and hohlraum case-to-capsule ratios, provide added confidence in the pursuit of ignition on the National Ignition Facility [J. D. Lindl, P. Amendt, R. L. Berger et al., Phys. Plasmas 11, 339 (2004)]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diagnostic designs for the Laser Mégajoule (LMJ) will require components to operate in environments far more severe than those encountered in present facilities. This harsh environment will be induced by fluxes of neutrons, gamma rays, energetic ions, electromagnetic radiations, and, in some cases, debris and shrapnel, at levels several orders of magnitude higher than those experienced today on existing facilities. The lessons learned about the vulnerabilities of present diagnostic parts fielded mainly on OMEGA for many years, have been very useful guide for the design of future LMJ diagnostics. The present and future LMJ diagnostic designs including this vulnerability approach and their main mitigation techniques will be presented together with the main characteristics of the LMJ facility that provide for diagnostic protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have developed a new small neutron imaging system (SNIS) diagnostic for the OMEGA laser facility. The SNIS uses a penumbral coded aperture and has been designed to record images from low yield (109-1010 neutrons) implosions such as those using deuterium as the fuel. This camera was tested at OMEGA in 2009 on a rugby hohlraum energetics experiment where it recorded an image at a yield of 1.4 × 1010. The resolution of this image was 54 μm and the camera was located only 4 meters from target chamber centre. We recently improved the instrument by adding a cooled CCD camera. The sensitivity of the new camera has been fully characterized using a linear accelerator and a 60Co γ-ray source. The calibration showed that the signal-to-noise ratio could be improved by using raw binning detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]