Establishment of a novel detection system for measuring primary knock-on atoms

Tsai, P.-E.; Iwamoto, Yosuke   ; Hagiwara, Masayuki*; Sato, Tatsuhiko   ; Ogawa, Tatsuhiko   ; Satoh, Daiki   ; Abe, Shinichiro   ; Ito, Masatoshi*; Watabe, Hiroshi*

The energy spectra of primary knock-on atoms (PKAs) are essential for radiation damage assessment in design of accelerator facilities. However up to date the experimental data are still limited, due to the poor mass resolution and the high measurement threshold energies in the conventional setup of nuclear physics experiments using solid state detectors, which are typically above a few MeV/nucleon. In this study, a novel detection system consisting of two time detectors and one dE-E energy detector is proposed and being constructed to measure the PKA spectra. The system and detector design was based on Monte Carlo simulations by using the PHITS code. The PHITS simulations show that the system is able to distinguish the PKA isotopes above 0.2-0.3 MeV/nucleon for A=2030 amu; the PKA mass identification thresholds decrease to 0.1 MeV/nucleon for PKAs lighter than 20 amu. The detection system will be tested in the summer of 2017, and the test results will be presented at the conference.