Lead–gold eutectic: An alternative liquid target material candidate for high power spallation neutron sources

Abstract One of the main technical concerns of Megawatt-class spallation neutron sources is the removal of the heat deposited in the target station. A way to overcome it is to use targets consisting of flowing liquid metals, but the already tested materials – mercury and lead–bismuth eutectic (LBE) – are not unproblematic. We show here that another eutectic alloy containing lead and gold (LGE) could be a suitable alternative. Besides a chemical toxicity lower than mercury, this low melting-point alloy has the advantage of being solid at RT. Moreover, it combines a neutron production similar to mercury and LBE with smaller amounts of alpha-emitting nuclides, relieving safety and environmenta…