Neutron Sources

This page collects information about neutron sources that were either running historically, or are still running in service, or will be coming online in the near future. The picture down below is a track of neutron sources history, dating all the back to the discovery of neutrons by J. Chadwick in 1932.

We will keep expanding the page as more information is collected.

The image here was reproduced from multiple resources – see [Andersen and Carlile, 2016] and [Price and Skold, 1986].

Particle Driven

Resources in early days with small scale of production

• J. Chadwick

• 350 mCi Ra-Be source

  I am not finding any materials introducing the early status of this type of source. If anyone has anything to share, please feel free to get in touch with Yuanpeng Zhang.

• Berkley 37-inch cyclotron

Reactor Based

• CP-1 & CP-2 at Chicago, US

  Resources in early days

  • Wikipedia page

• X-10 at Oak Ridge, US

  Resources in early days

  • Wikipedia page

• NRX & NRU at Chalk River, Canada

  Closed in 2018. See the article here.

  • Wikipedia page on NRX

  • Wikipedia page on NRU

  • Early report on NRX

• MTR at Idaho, US

  Fully decommissioned in 2011

  • Wikipedia page

• HFIR at Oak Ridge, US

  Started in 1965 and fully functioning now

  • Landing page of HFIR at ORNL

• HFBR at Brookhaven, US

  Shut down in 1999

  • Introduction to HFBR

• ILL at Grenoble, France

  Started in 1970s and fully functioning now

  • ILL history

  • ILL landing page

• FRM II at Garching, Germany

  Started in 2000s and fully functioning now

  • Wikipedia page

  • FRM II landing page

Spallation Based

• ZING-P at Chicago, US

  Started in 1977 and terminated in 1980.

  • Report on Argonne pulsed neutron source program

  • Argonne pulsed neutrons history

  • The birth of pulsed neutron source

• WNR at Los Alamos, US

  Started in 1970s and still in service but not open to general users.

  • LANSCE history

  • WNR user program

• IPNS at Chicago, US

  Started in 1981 and terminated in 2008.

  • Argonne pulsed neutrons history

  • The birth of pulsed neutron source

  • Introduction paper to IPNS

  • Early paper on IPNS

• KENS at Tsukuba, Japan

  Started in 2000 and terminated in 2006.

  • KENS-II, its History from Design to Removal

  • KENS review 2004

  • KENS review 1997

• ISIS neutron source at Oxford, UK

  Started in 1984 and fully functioning now

  • ISIS neutron source homepage

  • ISIS neutron source facts and figures

• SNS at Oak Ridge, US

  Started in 2006 and fully functioning now

  • SNS landing page

  • Shull and Wollan, and neutron pioneers

  • A History of Neutron Scattering at ORNL

• JPARC at Tokai, Japan

  Started in 2008 and fully functioning now

  • JPARC history

  • JPARC landing page

• CSNS at Dongguan, China

  Started in 2018 and fully functioning now

  • Neutron sources introduction

  • HongKong’s participation at the CSNS

• ESS at Lund, Sweden

  Planned to function in 2027

  • ESS landing page

• S-SNS (second target station at SNS) at Oak Ridge, US

  Construction planned to start in 2025

  • Second target station at SNS landing page

• SINQ at PSI, Swiss

  Started in 1996 and fully functioning now

  Though produced through spallation, this is a steady rather than a pulsed neutron source.

  • SINQ landing page

  • SINQ history

More Resources

Here we are zipping up a few presentations about neutron sources. Click here to download them.