Physical design of a high-intensity compact D–D/D–T neutron generator based on the internal antenna RF ion source.

A high-intensity compact D–D/D–T neutron generator with a thick adsorption target is designed with an intensity of 1012 n/s. In this work, a radio-frequency (RF) ion source ignited by an internal antenna is designed with magnetic mirror fields in both axial and radial directions, which can facilitate the confinement of high-density plasma and prolong the service life of the ion source. According to the finite element method software COMSOL Multiphysics, a high-current low-energy D+ beam transport line is simulated and designed with the deuterium beam of 200 keV/6 mA. In particular, the adsorption target is fixed at an angle of 45° with respect to the beam direction, which is beneficial to reduce the beam power density of the target. The simulation results show that the maximum temperature of the target surface is 171.0 °C, which would reduce deuterium or tritium release from the adsorption target. According to the Multi-layer computing model, neutron energy spectra, angular distributions and integrated yields of the compact D–D/D–T neutron generator are calculated and evaluated, corresponding to a thick adsorption target at the deuterium beam of 200 keV/6 mA. The compact D–D/D–T neutron generator can produce quasi-mono-energetic neutrons with energy of 2.45 or 14.1 MeV, respectively, corresponding to the neutron yields up to 6.06 × 109 and 1.18 × 1012 n/s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]