Feasibility of 3HeD6LiD thermal-to-fusion neutron converters for fusion reactor materials testing

³HeD/⁶LiD thermal-to-fusion (E=14 MeV) neutron converters have been developed at the IWW-2M reactor to simulate the irradiation of structural materials in a fusion reactor. These converters increase the highest energy part of the neutron spectrum (E>14 MeV) by ≈10¹⁰ n/(Cm²·s) in the reactor´s test channel (≈6-cm diam.), corresponding to a 14-MeV neutron fluence of ≈2·10¹⁶ n/cm² per 500-hour reactor cycle. However, the high energy release (up to 1-2 kW/gr) in the converters from the⁶Li(n,T)α and ³ He(n,T)p exothermal reactions created there can be a critical problem in conducting experiments of this kind