High energy ion beam analysis at ARRONAX

Full text: ARRONAX, acronym for 'Accelerator for Research in Radiochemistry and Oncology at Nantes' is a high energy cyclotron. It is characterized by the acceleration of several types of particle beams: 68 MeV alpha, 15-35 MeV deuterons and 30-68 MeV protons. A platform was implemented on ARRONAX to perform non-destructive materials analysis with X and gamma rays emission (PIXE-PIGE). A proper selection of the projectile type and beam energy allows to analyze heavy and light elements in thin and thick samples. Our research activities are oriented along three axes: 1) Measurements of K X-ray production cross section for various elements to complement the databases at high energy. A first experiment has been conducted to measure these cross sections for copper and gold with protons energy between 34 and 68 MeV. 2) Study of the detection sensitivity which depends on the nuclear background and the Bremsstrahlung radiations. A dedicated shielding has been developed and detection limits below tens of μg/g/μC have been assessed using different referenced samples from IAEA. 3) Determination of concentration profile as function of the depth in a thick target. Using layered samples, we have showed for a target consisting of three different layers, the possibility to determine the sequence and thickness of each layer by using X and gamma rays measured respectively during and after irradiation. During this talk, I will present the characteristics and the capabilities of our platform. In the near future we intend to install the PIGE technique and use it with 15 MeV deuterons to analyze lightweight elements. (author)