Nuclear Targetry

Low energy nuclear reactions often rely on an accelerated ion beam impinging on a thin film known as a target. The beam provides most of the energy and some of the nucleons involved in the reaction, and the target provides the reaction location and the rest of the nucleons. Targets are often specially produced for specific experiments, made using isotopically enriched material.

The Esker Lab specialized in target production and characterization. Please feel free to contact us if you are interested in working together!

We have a thermal evaporator (pictured) and an e-beam evaporator to produce isotopically enriched targets. We maintain an active chemistry lab space to produce targets via electrodeposition and solvent casting. We also have dedicated laboratory space in the SJSU nuclear science facility, which will allow us to produce radioactive targets by physical deposition and electrodeposition.

We are interested in novel thin film technologies to create more robust and useful nuclear science targets.

Once made, we can characterize the target's thickness, chemical form, and surface morphology. Being in the Chemistry Dept., we have access to a wide array of analytical instrumentation (pictured). We non-destructively measure target thickness via α-particle energy loss, surface morphology using sub-micron microscopy, and chemical form via X-ray diffraction (pictured) and 2D FT/IR. For more precise surface characterization, we also have access to instrumentation for atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy.