Neutron Physics has offered some solutions for problems found in many fields of the modern life. Its applications can be found in polymer studies, the isotope production, the radiotherapy, etc.[1,2,3 ]

Today, the main neutron source are the nuclear reactors; however, with the increasing use of these particles in very different environments of the nuclear research laboratories, it became necessary to find other production alternatives. A possible solution is to use a particle accelerator (electrons, protons, etc.) which beam collides on a target with appropriate features for neutron production, through nuclear reactions between beam and target particles. This solution presents some advantages on the reactors use, as:

1. offers low risk, since it is not based on process involved with string reactions ;
   
2. occupy a very small space compared to the one demanded by a nuclear reactor;
   
3. particles accelerators are already used in hospitals, clinics and industries;
   
4. accelerator characteristic (type of accelerated particle, energy, current, etc.) could be chosen to optimise its application.
    

The electron accelerator (microtron) that it is being constructed in the LAL, presents features that can be useful for the neutrons production. In fact, preliminaries studies [4] had indicated that the electron energy and the current that will have to be reached by this accelerator allow neutrons production with enough intensity for most of the applications. In this project, our main objective is to study the viability of the neutron production from the microtron electron beam. For this, we will make electron interaction simulations with different materials targets using GEANT[5] programs package developed in CERN laboratory, and LAHET package, developed in Los Alamos, that is very used for directed simulations of neutron[6] production and transport. After these simulations, we will study which target features must be privileged in order to get neutron flux with the desired characteristics, the need of neutron shield to guarantee the security in the laboratory during the use of the neutron source, and to evaluate its construction costs.

1)H.H. Barschall, "Neutron Sources for Basic Physics and Applications", ed. S. Cierjacks, pp 57-70. Pergamon Press, 1983.

2)C. Wang et al., "Accelerator Neutron Irradiation Facility for Hospital Based Neutron Capture Therapy". In Advances in Neutron Capture Therapy. Proceedings of the Fifth Int. Symp. On Neutron Capture Therapy, pp 119-124. New York, Plenum Press, 1993.

3) J. C. Yanch et al., Medical Physics 19 (1992) 704.

4) J. D. T. Arruda Neto e M. Filadelfo, Appl. Rad. And Isotopes (50) 3 (1999) 491-496.

5) Geant Manual:

6) R. E. Prael, Amer. Nucl. Soc. Transactions 69 (1993) 426.