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PN1

Fission-product spectrometer

Preparation of fission-product sources

Recoil spectrometry has a double goal:

  • to study the fission process, which provides information about intra-nuclear forces;
  • to produce and isolate new atomic nuclei (exotic nuclei), making it possible to develop models further.

At PN1, the target sample is bombarded with a high flux of thermal neutrons to break up atomic nuclei and produce new ones. Fission reactions involving neutron capture then generally produce nuclei with excess neutrons.