Ron Nelson of Los Alamos National Laboratory stands near the center of the Germanium Array for Neutron-Induced Excitations (GEANIE) at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) provides the scientific community with intense sources of neutrons for experiments supporting national security, academic and industrial research.
LANSCE has two spallation neutron sources: the Manuel Lujan Jr. Neutron Scattering Center (Target-1) and the Neutron and Nuclear Science Research facility (Target-4). Together they provide neutrons over a range of energies—extending from sub-milli electron volts to hundreds of million electron volts—that are used for both material science and nuclear science research.
In addition, LANSCE provides protons for radiography of dynamically evolving systems as well as for materials irradiation and isotope production. LANSCE also has an intense source of ultra-cold neutrons for fundamental physics research.
Users of the facility span a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines and institutions in the U.S. and abroad.
GEANIE is the first large-scale, escape-suppressed, high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometer to be used at a white neutron source. GEANIE currently consists of 26 high-resolution Ge detectors surrounded by BGO escape-suppression shields.
Image credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory