Development of Ten-Inch Manipulator-Based Particle Time-of-Flight Spectrometer for the OMEGA EP Laser System

The particle Time of Flight (pToF) detector is intended for use with the Short-Lived Isotope Counting System (SLICS) in experiments designed to determine the reaction cross-section for interactions that create short half-life activation products. SLICS and the pToF detector have been redesigned for use in a Ten-Inch Manipulator (TIM) for deployment in the OMEGA and OMEGA-EP target chambers at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. The first measurements with the TIM-based pToF uses OMEGA-EP to generate a short intense pulse of approximately 10¹³ deuterons with energies up to 12 MeV via Transverse Normal Sheath Acceleration (TNSA) . These deuterons activate a ⁷Li target which reacts to produce the nuclear product ⁸Li to be counted using the SLICS. Simultaneously, the pToF measures the deuteron energy spectrum, allowing the determination of the cross-section.