Development of an Intense Pulsed Characteristic γ-Ray Source for Active Interrogation of Special Nuclear Material

An intense source of characteristic gamma-rays is developed as a potential probe to identify special nuclear material. A pinch-reflex ion diode is operated on the Gamble II pulsed power generator to produce proton beams with 270-kA peak current and 2.0-MV peak voltage. These beams bombard a PTFE (Teflon) target to produce characteristic gamma-rays by the
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F(p,alphagamma)
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O reaction with energies of 6.13, 6.92, and 7.12 MeV and with an intensity of 3.1x10
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gamma-rays into 4pi in a single 50-ns duration pulse. Simple ballistic transport is used to transport the proton beam one meter so that the gamma-ray signal is separated in time and space from the diode bremsstrahlung pulse.