Neutron Activation Services
Directed 14 MeV flux can activate target materials to make specific radioisotopes — an activation service alongside breeding and materials testing.
Making isotopes by irradiation
Beyond breeding tritium and testing materials, Hyperion's neutron flux can activate deliberately chosen target materials to produce specific radioisotopes. When a stable nucleus absorbs a neutron or undergoes an (n,2n), (n,p), or (n,α) reaction, it can transmute into a useful radioactive or stable isotope.
The 14 MeV spectrum is again distinctive: it opens threshold reaction channels unavailable to the thermal neutrons of a fission reactor, so a fusion source can reach isotopes and production routes that are difficult or impossible elsewhere. Targets are placed in dedicated irradiation positions, irradiated to a planned fluence, then removed and processed.
What activation services can address
- Isotopes reachable via fast/threshold reactions not favored in fission
- Research and calibration sources
- Feedstock for downstream isotope processing
- Complement to the tritium and helium-3 streams
Same budget, same discipline
Activation draws on the same finite neutron budget as breeding and materials testing, so it is allocated deliberately. Activated targets are radioactive and enter the same accountancy and handling framework as the other products. The specific isotope menu is a design-and-simulation and licensing question; this page makes no economic or market claim, only the physical capability.
This page describes a design-and-simulation study, not a built machine. Construction begins Q2 2027; first-of-a-kind (FOAK) first tritium is targeted near 2030. No net-gain claim is made before FOAK.