New Nuclear Targetry Group at SJSU

A new nuclear targetry lab has been established at San José State University. The last decade has seen a marked increase in the demand for well-made targets, driven by many thriving nuclear facilities, the advent of FRIB, and the closure of several legacy targetry labs. Focusing on thin film targets for low energy nuclear reaction studies, the SJSU targetry group are able to make and characterize nuclear targets for a variety of experimental applications. Current production techniques include physical vapor deposition via a resistive heating vacuum evaporator, cold rolling of ductile materials, and solvent casting for deuterated plastic targets. SJSU's target characterization capabilities includes optical microscopy for surface morphology, FTIR & XRD for elemental & chemical analysis, and α-energy loss for film thickness measurement. This talk will focus on introducing the different abilities currently available at SJSU by highlighting some recently produced targets for nuclear physics experiments, as well as planned radioactive targets.