Compact Pulsed Hadron Source - a University-based Accelerator Platform for Multidisciplinary Neutron and Proton Applications*

During the past decades, large-scale national neutron sources were developed in Asia, Europe, and North America. Complementing such efforts, compact hadron beam complexes and neutron sources intended to serve primarily universities and industrial institutes were proposed and some have recently been established. Responding to the demand in China for multidisciplinary fundamental and applied research using pulsed neutron and proton beams, from scattering experiments to hadron therapy and radiography to accelerator-driven sub-critical reactor systems (ADS) for nuclear waste transmutation, we here propose a compact yet expandable accelerator complex—a Compact Pulsed Hadron Source (CPHS). It consists of an accelerator front-end—a high-intensity ion source, a 3 MeV radiofrequency quadrupole linac (RFQ), and a 13 MeV drift-tube linac (DTL), a neutron target station—a beryllium target with solid methane and roomtemperature water moderators/reflector, and tentatively six neutron stations for imaging/radiography, activation analysis, small-angle scattering, reflectometry, beamline optics development, and therapy. Additionally, the proton beam can be switched to serve multiple proton stations for biotechnological, fuel cell, and nano-applications, as well as space irradiation and detection. In the future CPHS may also serve as an injector to a ring for proton therapy and radiography or as the front end to a superconducting RF linac for accelerator driven sub-critical reactor test programs.