Spallation Neutron Source

Providing the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world...
 

Accumulator Ring Commissioning Latest Step for Spallation Neutron Source The Spallation Neutron Source, located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has passed another milestone on the way to completion this year--the commissioning of the proton accumulator ring. Brookhaven led the design and construction of the accumulator ring, which will allow an order of magnitude more beam power than any other facility in the world.

The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is an accelerator-based neutron source being built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The figure on the right shows a schematic of the accumulator ring and transport beam lines that are being designed and built by Brookhaven National Laboratory for the SNS Project.  This equipment represents an integral part of the machine between the upstream linac (Berkeley, LANL and J-Lab) and the experimental area and target station (ANL and ORNL).  Its prime purpose is to strip, accelerate and transport the particle beam from the linac to the target station.

When completed in 2006, the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) will be the world's foremost neutron scattering science facility for conducting, chemistry, and structural biology.  The design calls for a beam of negatively charged hydrogen (H-) ions to be generated and accelerated to an energy of one billion electron volts (GeV) using a linear accelerator (linac).

The H- beam will then be transported to an accumulator ring, where it will be converted to protons by stripping away the electrons and bunched into a short (less than one microsecond ) pulse.  Finally, the pulsed proton beam will be directed onto a liquid mercury target, where 60-Hz pulses of neutrons will be created through spallation reactions of the protons with the mercury nuclei.  Inside the target building, the emerging neutrons will be slowed or moderated and channeled through beam-lines to instrumented experimental areas where users will carry out their research.

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Last Modified: January 31, 2008

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

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