Production of high energy and low flux protons using 2D(3He,p)4He for space detector calibrations

In this report, we want to demonstrate that besides the conventional use for elemental analysis and depth profiling by ion beam analysis (IBA), particles generated through ion–solid interactions in IBA may find other novel and important applications. Specifically, we use Rutherford backscattered and nuclear reaction produced high energy proton particles to calibrate an energetic particle subsystem (called ZEP) of the Space and Atmospheric Burst Reporting System (SABRS) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). To simulate low radiation flux in the space, we have devised an experiment that uses an ultrathin (∼51.8nm) self-support gold foil to scatter a proton beam from a 3MV Tandem accelerator into the ZEP subsystem. Direct backscattering from the thin gold foil produces proton particles with tunable energies of 0.2–6.0MeV and desired counting rates of