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Construction of high-resolution energy—time-of-flight spectrometer for determination of fission fragment mass distributions

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Abstract

Purpose

With the aim of determining mass yield distributions of primary fission products, a one-arm spectrometer was developed based on kinetic energy and time-of-flight correlation measurement technique.

Methods

An axial grid ionization chamber (GIC) was designed for energy detecting. In order to minimize energy losses and straggling, a thin silicon nitride film with a thickness of 100 nm was performed as the entrance window of the GIC. The energy resolution is 0.38% for 80 MeV 63Cu particles. Two-timing detectors based on the detection of secondary emission electrons by microchannel plates (MCPs) constitute the time pick-off system, and the time-of-flight resolution is better than 200 ps (FWHM) measured with a 241Am α source. With a flight path length of 47.6 cm, the path length resolution is 0.21%.

Results and conclusion

The first result of mass distribution from 252Cf spontaneous fission was reported. Energy losses of fragments in dead layers of the spectrometer were corrected event-by-event depend on the Monte Carlo calculation. The mass resolution for light fission fragments peak A = 107 amu is 1.3 aum.

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Availability of data and material

The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 11790322.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Nuclear Data, China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing, 102413, China

    Chao Liu, Shilong Liu & Yi Yang

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  1. Chao Liu
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  2. Shilong Liu
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Correspondence to Shilong Liu.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Liu, C., Liu, S. & Yang, Y. Construction of high-resolution energy—time-of-flight spectrometer for determination of fission fragment mass distributions. Radiat Detect Technol Methods 6, 102–110 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41605-021-00303-3

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