High-resolution measurements of the exited states (n,p_n), (n,d_n) C-12 cross sections

¹ ENEA UT-FUS, C.R. Frascati, via E. Fermi 45, 00044 Frascati (Rome) Italy
² European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements, 2440 Geel, Belgium
³ CCFE, Culham Science Centre, Abingdon OX14 3DB, UK

^a e-mail: mario.pillon@enea.it

Published online: 13 September 2017

Abstract

Measurements of C12 cross sections for the excited states (n,p₀) up to (n,p₄) and (n,d₀), (n,d₁) have been carried out. The Van de Graaff neutron generator of the EC-JRC-IRMM laboratory has been used for these measurements. A very thin tritiated target (263 μg/cm²) was employed with deuteron beams energies impinging on the target in the range 2.5–4.0 MeV. Neutrons in the range 18.9–20.7 MeV were produced with an intrinsic energy spread of 0.2–0.25% FWHM. With such narrow neutron energy spread, using a high energy resolution device such as a single crystal diamond detector, several peaks from the outgoing charged particles produced by the (n,p_n), (n,d_n) and also (n,α₀) reactions appear in the pulse height spectrum. The peaks can be identified using the reaction Q-values. The diamond detector used for these measurements has shown an intrinsic energy resolution lower than 0.9% FWHM. The analysis of the peaks has permitted to derive the partial carbon reaction cross sections for several excited states. The results are presented in this paper with the associated uncertainties and they are compared with different versions of TENDL compilation when these data are available (e.g. versions 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2015) and also with experimental results available in the EXFOR database.