A new experimental apparatus for production and utilization of capture gamma rays

Abstract This paper describes an experimental apparatus mounted at a tangential beam tube of the IPEN IEA-R1 research reactor, for production and utilization of capture gamma-rays. By changing the target material, it was possible to produce up to 30 gamma-ray lines in the 5 to 11 MeV energy range providing at least 18 new energies to be explored in photonuclear reactions studies, besides those usually obtained with similar gamma ray sources. The gamma-ray flux density produced by each target was measured with a Ge(Li) spectrometer. The efficiency calibration for this detector was performed, in the 5 to 11 MeV energy interval, using samples of nickel and nitrogen as reference standards. Least square fitting methods and covariance matrix have been applied in the experimental data analysis.