The presence of high-energy neutrons in neutron pulses emitted from a kilojoule plasma focus device: Deuterium as a working gas

In the present work, a kilo-joule plasma focus device, PF-2kJ, is used as a pulsed neutron generator. Time of flight and neutron spectroscopic measurements suggest neutron energies larger than 5 MeV in the radial and axial directions. The anisotropy in neutron emission suggested a beam-target nuclear fusion mechanism. A simulation tool kit Geant4 is used to interpret and verify the experimentally observed spectroscopic results of neutrons' energies. Based on the findings, it is hypothesized that the pinch and pre-pinch phases invoke suitable conditions for the D–D reaction that produces proton and tritium. The produced tritium nuclei further collide with deuterons in the pinch and post-pinch phases and produce high-energy neutrons. However, the observed high-energy neutrons could be of mixed origin of beam-target nuclear fusion mechanism and D–T fusion reactions.