A zero-to-few-hundred eV proton beam for calibrations of neutron β decay experiments

We have constructed a system using a duoplasmatron source to produce a beam of low-energy (0 - few hundred eV) protons with the principal goal of testing and calibrating detectors used to detect protons from neutron β decay. The system is stable and produces beams by simply turning on the associated power supplies without the need of careful tuning. As an example we show data from calibration of a surface barrier detector in the emiT apparatus. Protons from the system were scattered from an Al target and used to calibrate detectors in the emiT apparatus