Irradiation facility

The Particle and Nuclear Physics Groups at the University of Birmingham have been operating the MC40 cyclotron with UK colleagues from Sheffield and Liverpool since 2013 as a high intensity irradiation facility for nuclear, medical and particle physics collaborations, such as RD50, ATLAS, LHCb and PRaVDA. The facility is part of the AIDA-2020 framework for transnational facility access.

This facility offers a proton beam with energy up to 40 MeV and currents as high as 2 μA, allowing to reach a fluence in the order of 10¹⁵ 1MeV n_eq/cm² in minutes. Irradiations can be carried out in an environmentally controlled box at temperatures down to -40 C and humidity well below 10%. Samples can be scanned through the 1 cm² beam to obtain a homogenous irradiation. Beam fluence is determined online using a Faraday Cup and offline by measuring the activity of nickel foils.

You can find more information on the irradiation facility at these links:

MC40 cyclotron web page

Most recent publication on the irradiation facility

AIDA2020 website