Rene' Ortman, Florida Institute of Technology / University of Connecticut / WNSL Yale University

Title: Detector test conducted at WNSL Yale University

Authors: R. Ortman (Florida Institute of Technology); M. Gai, R. H. France III, J. E. McDonald, D. Wang (University of Connecticut)

Abstract: To understand the formation of oxygen during helium burning in massive stars, improved measurements of the cross section of the 12C(a,g)16O reaction must be obtained. To measure this cross section, we have designed a new experiment utilizing the hotodissociation of 16O nuclei bombarded with approximately 9 MeV photons to be provided by TUNL at Duke University. We need detectors that can both detect low energy alpha particles and are insensitive to Compton electrons. We have found that solar cells possess the characteristics necessary to serve as a detector in our proposed TUNL experiment. The solar cell is found to be 100% efficient in stopping low energy alpha particles. We measured the resolution to be 125 keV at 3.2 Mev and found it to be insensitive to 1 MeV electrons at the one part in one million level.