ICONS: Intense and Compact Neutron Sources

The Intense and Compact Neutron Sources (ICONS) program seeks to achieve highly portable, intense neutron sources to enable deployable, high-resolution neutron and x-ray imaging for DoD applications such as non-destructive evaluation, detection of explosives and special nuclear materials, and forensics.

Existing neutron imaging and sensing sources require large, fixed infrastructure to achieve the power needed for high-resolution imaging and do not meet the size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements for military expeditionary missions. The development of novel, high-intensity neutron sources in a low-SWaP package would have significant national security applications by delivering detailed and accurate internal imaging of objects in relevant environments.