Request for Expressions of Interest for Potential HEET Facility

Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is in the planning phase for the construction of a new, dedicated High-Energy Single Event Effects Test user facility (HEET) that can be utilized to explore radiation effects in materials, electronics, and other systems of interest. This facility will provide beam time to users at an affordable cost. We can achieve this most effectively by building on existing DOE accelerator infrastructure currently in operation at BNL.

BNL is seeking Expressions of Interest for potential users of a new HEET facility to help determine demand levels for such a facility. Expressions of Interest will be reviewed by the Collider-Accelerator Department at BNL and may be shared with other Federal Agencies. By submitting your personal data, you acknowledge that your personal data will be processed in accordance with the Laboratory’s privacy policy.

We have developed a pre-conceptual design of HEET and are refining this plan in conversations with commercial and national defense partners to ensure that the new facility will meet future customer needs. The facility will operate at high duty cycle, with the provisions for isolated, secure data acquisition when required. The plan is to construct the beamline and target area inside an existing support building, obviating the need for civil construction.

HEET will be capable of operating with any species of ion, from protons up to uranium beams. The beam spill lengths can vary from 0.1 to 5 seconds, with transverse uniformity of ±5% over variable spot sizes up to 400 cm². Beam energies can range from 40 MeV/n up to 2,500 MeV/n for heavy ions. A wide range of flux will be available, from 10 to 10⁶ ions/(cm²-sec), all resulting in a large range in LET, from less than 2x10^-3 to almost 10² MeV-cm²/mg in Silicon.

Construction is expected to be completed as quickly as three (3) years from project start, and the facility will provide over 5000 hours of beamtime per year. Our current projection is that the facility model will be to operate at a competitive hourly rate.

Brookhaven solicits interest from prospective customers with this announcement. Expressions of Interest should be submitted to partnerships@bnl.gov by March 15, 2022. Please contact brownk@bnl.gov if you would like additional information about HEET.