DESIGN AND POSSIBILITIES OF THE NEW SUE,PIERRE LABORATORY NUCLEAR MICROPROBE

A description of the nuclear microprobe under construction by the CEA and the CNRS in an air-conditioned building is given. The installation consists of a 3.5 MV Vivitron-type single-stage Van de Graaff accelerator specially designed for microprobe purposes, two beam lines and an exploitation equipment including a high-performance image mapping and analysing system. One of these lines (45-degrees) is extended to the high activity area of the "Pierre Sue" Laboratory. It will be mainly used for examinations of very high activity nuclear materials (irradiated fuel, cladding materials, etc.). The corresponding analysis chamber is surrounded by special equipment including two lead-shielded hot cells and a sophisticated device allowing the transfer and the positioning of the samples. The other line (90-degrees) is provided with an analysis chamber enabling analytical examinations under ultrahigh-vacuum conditions. The various analytical possibilities and the potential performances of this particularly powerful new generation nuclear microprobe are indicated.