ANEM: A rotating composite target to produce an atmospheric-like neutron beam at the LNL SPES facility

Gabriela Carolina Acosta Urdaneta,Luca Silvestrin,Pierfrancesco Mastinu,Jeffery Wyss,Dario Bisello,Juan Esposito,Gianfranco Prete

doi:10.1142/s2010194516602076

Abstract

A fast neutron (E> MeV) irradiation facility is under development at the 70 MeV SPES proton cyclotron at LNL (Legnaro, Italy) to investigate neutron-induced Single Event Effects (SEE) in microelectronic devices and systems. After an overview on neutron-induced SEE in electronics, we report on the progress in the design of ANEM (Atmospheric Neutron EMulator), a water-cooled rotating target made of Be and W to produce neutrons with an energy spectrum similar to that of neutrons produced by cosmic rays at sea-level. In ANEM, the protons from the cyclotron alternatively impinge on two circular sectors of Be and W of different areas; the effective neutron spectrum is a weighted combination of the spectra from the two sectors. In this contribution, we present the results of thermal-mechanical Finite Element Analysis (ANSYS) calculations of the performance of the ANEM prototype. The calculations at this stage indicate that ANEM can deliver fast neutrons with an atmospheric-like energy spectrum and with an integral flux [Formula: see text](1-70 MeV) [Formula: see text]107 n cm[Formula: see text]s[Formula: see text] that is 3×109 more intense than the natural one at sea-level: a very competitive flux for SEE testing.

Highlights

Neutron-induced Effects in Microelectronics at LNLThe study of radiation damage in electronics is an important field of scientific and technological research: radiation tolerance is essential for many scientific and technological applications of electronics in hostile radiation environments such as High Energy Physics (HEP), Nuclear Reactors, Nuclear Medicine and Space Applications
We report on the progress in the design of Atmospheric Neutron Emulator (ANEM) (Atmospheric Neutron EMulator), a water-cooled rotating target made of Be and W to produce neutrons with an energy spectrum similar to that of neutrons produced by cosmic rays at sea-level
Neutron-induced Single Event Effect (SEE) types range from Soft Errors such as Single Event Upsets (SEU) that consist in memory data corruption or changes in the state of logic circuits to catastrophic Hard Errors that may permanently damage a device such as Single Event Latch-up in CMOS technologies and Single Event Burn-out in power MOSFETs

Summary

Introduction

The study of radiation damage in electronics is an important field of scientific and technological research: radiation tolerance is essential for many scientific and technological applications of electronics in hostile radiation environments such as High Energy Physics (HEP), Nuclear Reactors, Nuclear Medicine and Space Applications. The SPES proton beam will be used to feed a relatively inexpensive and accessible neutron and proton irradiation facility (NEPIR).[7,8] One of the NEPIR beam lines will use the Atmospheric Neutron Emulator (ANEM), a specialized neutron production target for studying SEE induced by atmospheric neutrons It will produce a continuous energy neutron beam with an energy distribution similar to that of atmospheric neutrons found at flight-altitudes and at sea level in the 1–70 MeV energy range. In this case, the Be sector takes up 18% of the full circle. We assume that the Be sector takes up 18% of the full circle

Finite Element Analysis with ANSYS

Findings

Conclusion