Calibration of indium response functions in an Au-In-BSE system up to 800 MeV

Abstract

Calibration of the response functions of a gold (Au)–indium (In) dual foil Bonner sphere extended (BSE) system was described. The response of the In and Au foil of the system was calculated using MCNPX code with different activation cross-sectional libraries: (ACTL and ENDF VI for gold and ACTL and 532DOS2 for In). To verify and correct the calculated response functions the Bonner sphere set (BSS) was irradiated using ²⁵²Cf and ²⁴¹AmBe sources of known neutron strengths for neutrons ranging from thermal to 20 MeV, and was irradiated at the 800-MeV neutron beam of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. The neutron spectrum of the 800 MeV beam was determined using time-of-flight (TOF) technique. We observed that the uncertainty of activation cross section in the resonance region can result in great uncertainty in the MCNPX-calculated response functions of activation foil-based BSS. The MCNPX-calculated response functions must be corrected using neutron sources of known spectrum and strength.