Abstract
Neutron sources are commonly used in research, industry, and clinical applications. Many of these are in sealed radiological sources used in petroleum engineering (e.g., well logging for oil exploration), in medicine (cancer treatment, pacemakers, and diagnostics), in homes (smoke detectors), and to make electricity (in radiothermal generators that generate power in remote areas ranging from lighthouses to outer space). For example, Cf-252 and Am-Be are used to provide multi-MeV neutrons for activation analysis and well logging. Radioactive sources can be portable or fixed, and most are quite small, ranging from tiny brachytherapy needles or seeds (implanted for localized cancer treatment) to thimble-sized plugs sealed within secure capsules for industrial gauges.
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Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank members of the Plasma and Ion Source Technology Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley, and the EUROSEA Committee in Turin, Italy, for the material presented in this article.
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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Leung, KN. (2012). Compact Neutron Generator for BNCT. In: Sauerwein, W., Wittig, A., Moss, R., Nakagawa, Y. (eds) Neutron Capture Therapy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31334-9_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31334-9_4
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