Neutron damage calculations in Cu,Nb and Au to 32 MeV: Application to sputtering and deuteron-breakup neutron sources

Primary recoil distributions and specific damage energies have been computed for high energy deuteron-breakup neutrons in Cu, Nb and Au. The calculations are based on theoretical neutron cross sections and consider in particular a d-Be spectrum broadly peaked at 15 MeV with some neutrons above 30 MeV. The theoretical results are similar to corresponding calculations for monoenergetic 15-MeV neutrons and are in good agreement with range measurements of (n, 2n) recoils generated by high energy d-Be neutrons in Nb and Au. The calculations are also consistent with recent d-Be neutron sputtering experiments in Nb and Au and demonstrate the usefulness of deuteron-breakup neutron sources for simulating fusion neutron effects.