Report on positron spectroscopy for the BESAC panel on neutron sources Available to Purchase

An unofficial consensus of a recent DOE‐sponsored meeting on the prospects for materials studies with positrons is that, but for the present lack of intensity, positron spectroscopy of momentum densities and defects would realize its full potential as a unique and powerful probe of condensed matter. The applications range from the recent measurement of a part of the Fermi surface in YBa₂Cu₃O₇ that has not been seen by any other method to quantitative studies of defects in polymers, laminates, reactor materials, interfaces, and semiconductor multilayers. The relation to neutron sources is that the most intense source of positrons can be produced at a nuclear reactor. As intermediate steps it is recommended that there be improved instrumentation and other upgrades at existing facilities and tests of proposed high flux production methods that are relevant to the ANS.