Portable and Adaptable Neutron Diagnostics for ARPA-E Capabilities and Deployments

The Portable and Adaptable Neutron Diagnostic for ARPA-E (PANDA) was developed to verify the neutron yield and presence of thermonuclear fusion. An array of plastic scintillators at different angles and LaBr₃ activation detectors record neutron data from fusion experiments with yields above 5E6 neutrons. Because of the flexibility in experimental setup and analysis methods, PANDA can be used at a variety of facilities pursuing fusion in the magnetic, inertial, and magneto-inertial fusion regimes. For emission times < 100 ns, time of flight method is used to determine the neutron energy. For emission times > 1 µs, plastic scintillators are operated in pulse counting mode and the shape of a pulse integral spectrum is used to determine neutron energy. The first uses of PANDA are at a staged Z-pinch device operated by Magneto-Inertial Fusion Technologies, Inc at the UC San Diego and a sheared-flow stabilized Z-pinch device operated by Zap Energy, Inc. These experiments will demonstrate the ability of PANDA to measure neutron yields and energy-angle distributions for fusion sources to determine the presence of beam versus thermonuclear fusion.