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AIFIRA: a light ion beam facility for ion beam analysis and irradiation

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Abstract

AIFIRA is a small-scale ion beam facility equipped with a single-stage electrostatic accelerator delivering bright beams of light ions (protons, deuterons and helium ions) in the MeV energy range. The facility provides ion beam irradiation, analysis, and imaging techniques to academic research groups and companies. These techniques cover a wide range of applications including materials research, life sciences, environment, geology and geochemistry, archeometry, and applied physics. About 200 days of beam time are allocated each year to internal and external users either coming from local, national, or international teams. AIFIRA is certified as a research platform by its two parent institutions: CNRS/IN2P3 and the university of Bordeaux. Therefore, beamtime allocation is opened to external teams that are accompanied by local experts to prepare, perform and analyze their experiments. This paper describes the facility and the developments performed in the last years. We highlight two original features of the facility: charge collection studies using a microbeam and the production of secondary neutron fields.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Michal Pomorski and Izabella Zahradnik from CEA-LIST for the valuable discussions and their help about IBIC measurements in diamond-based micro-dosimeters.

Funding

The AIFIRA facility is financially supported by the CNRS, the university of Bordeaux and the Région Nouvelle Aquitaine

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, CENBG, UMR 5797, 33170, Gradignan, France

    P. Barberet, J. Jouve, S. Sorieul, P. Alfaurt & L. Mathieu

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  1. P. Barberet
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  2. J. Jouve
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Contributions

PB, SS, JJ, and LM wrote the paper. PA, SS, and JJ ensure the technical support of the facility, run the accelerator, and the beamlines. PB ensures the scientific coordination of the platform. LM performed the MCNP simulations.

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Correspondence to P. Barberet.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Barberet, P., Jouve, J., Sorieul, S. et al. AIFIRA: a light ion beam facility for ion beam analysis and irradiation. Eur. Phys. J. Plus 136, 67 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-020-01045-9

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