Effect of target material on neutron output and sputtering yield of D-D neutron tube

Abstract

The application of D-D neutron tube is increasingly widespread. The replacement of the original pure titanium target with an alloy target can effectively improve the defects such as embrittled and not flexible of titanium after hydrogen absorption. In this paper, a titanium film was prepared by magnetron sputtering and characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The prepared titanium target was used to assemble D-D neutron tube. The actual operation of the neutron tube was carried out, and the neutron yield was measured with the 3He neutron monitor. The experimental results are in good agreement with the calculation results by SRIM. Subsequently, the neutron output and target sputtering yield of the D-D neutron tube with alloy targets were calculated by SRIM, and the atomic ratios of scandium-titanium, molybdenum-titanium, niobium-titanium alloy were 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0. The results show that the neutron yield is relatively high and the sputtering yield is low when the scandium-titanium alloy with atomic ratio of 0.4 is chosen for target material.