Intense source of slow positrons

We describe a novel design for an intense source of slow positrons based on pair production with a beam of electrons from a 10 MeV accelerator hitting a thin target at a low incidence angle. The positrons are collected with a set of coils adapted to the large production angle. The collection system is designed to inject the positrons into a Greaves–Surko trap (Phys. Rev. A 46 (1992) 5696). Such a source could be the basis for a series of experiments in fundamental and applied research and would also be a prototype source for industrial applications, which concern the field of defect characterization in the nanometer scale.