Experimental tests of an advanced proton-to-neutron converter at ISOLDE-CERN

In this paper, an improved neutron converter prototype design is presented together with the experimentally assessed radioisotope production of Rb, Zn, Cu, Ga and In that validate the converter concept aiming at beams of higher purity neutron-rich isotopes. The experimentally derived release efficiencies for isotopes produced by the 1.4 GeV protons available at ISOLDE are used to evaluate the Monte Carlo code FLUKA and the cross-section codes TALYS and ABRABLA, respectively.