General Description of the NRL Sector-Focusing Cyclotron Facility

The nuclear physics research facilities at NRL are presently being expanded by the addition of a Sector-Focusing Cyclotron Facility. The Cyclotron is essentially a copy of the Oak Ridge Isochronous Cyclotron and much of the facility concept is patterned after the Oak Ridge Installation. A beam optics system was designed that satisfied the specified criteria as to image quality, and then a building design was coupled to this beam optics system. Included in the facility are a cyclotron and beam preparation vault, and three experimental rooms which are sufficiently well shielded from each other and from the cyclotron vault, so that personnel have access to any two experimental areas while the third is utilizing the cyclotron beam. Eleven separate beam paths will permit set-up of many different experiments simultaneously. The main experimental wing of the building also includes two experimental staging areas, a control room, and a data accumulation room. A laboratory-office wing provides space for check-out of various apparatus, a target preparation room, a machine shop, a darkroom, counting rooms, a library, a conference room, and offices for the staff. The facility will be used to study nuclear interaction mechanisms, polarization phenomena, nuclear structure, heavy ion, and neutron physics, as well as various areas of applied research.