Tritium Gas Target for Neutron Production

This paper reports a self-contained tritium gas target including beam collimator, target cell, and gas reservoir which has been used for the production of neutrons from the T(d,n)He4 and T(p,n)He3 reactions. Beam collimators are 0.14-in. tantalum apertures aligned in precision 1-in. tubing to assure accurate beam measurement. The gas cell is 516 in. diam and may be any length less than 3 in. The target window is a 0.00005-in. nickel foil soldered on a ¼-in. i.d. re-entrant tube. Tritium is supplied from a uranium-tritide oven; hydrogen-tritium exchange is minimized by the use of nonhydrogenous materials. A discussion is given of handling of tritium. The target will tolerate a 1 μamp beam of 2-Mev deuterons for several days without foil damage.