Yaron Danon

Professor, NE Program Director and Director, Gaerttner Linear Accelerator Center (LINAC), Mechanical Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering

Dr. Yaron Danon is a Professor in the department of Mechanical Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and the Director of the Nuclear Engineering Program. He received his MS and PhD degrees in Nuclear Engineering and Science at RPI.

Dr. Danon is the Director of the Gaerttner Electron Linear Accelerator (LINAC) Center at RPI, which houses a powerful 60 MeV pulsed electron LINAC used primarily as an intense pulsed neutron and gamma source. Dr. Danon’s nuclear data research group develops methods and performs experiments to measure neutron induced reactions and cross sections. Dr. Danon is the Chairman of the Measurements Committee of the US Cross Section Evaluation Working Group (CSEWG) and reports on US measurement activity to the Working Party on International Nuclear Data Evaluation Co-operation (WPEC). Dr. Danon is also a member of the Nuclear Data Advisory Group (NDAG) which advises the US DOE Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP) on issues relating to nuclear data.

Dr. Danon’s group develops novel radiation detectors, data acquisition systems, and data analysis methods for nuclear data application and other applications.  This research includes development of novel high efficiency, large area, zero bias solid-state neutron detectors.

In addition to nuclear data activities, Dr. Danon is a pioneer in the area of pyroelectric crystal acceleration. Together with his students he developed x-ray and neutron sources that utilize simple heating of these crystals and thus eliminate the requirement for high voltage power supply. Current research includes laser or light driven crystal based accelerators.

Dr. Danon published more than 180 articles in archived journals and conference proceedings. He advised 15 Ph.D. and 8 M.S. students that graduated; he currently advises 6 Ph.D. students and teaches courses on radiation technology and physics of nuclear reactors.

Updated 12/2016
Education 
Ph.D. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Research Focus
  • Nuclear Reactions, Nuclear Data, Novel neutron and x-ray sources
  • Novel radiation detectors
Contact Information
Select Works
  • Fission Cross-Section Measurements of 247Cm, 254Es, and 250Cf from 0.1 eV to 80 keV (1991)
  • Design and Construction of a Thermal Target for the RPI Linac (1995)
  • Fission Cross Section Measurements Of The Odd-Odd Isotopes 232pa, 238np and 236Np (1996)
  • Neutron Total Cross-Section Measurements and Resonance Parameter Analysis of Holmium, Thulium, and Erbium (1998)
  • Neutron capture and total cross-section measurements and resonance parameter analysis of zirconium up to 2.5 keV (2000)
  • Application of Monte Carlo Chord-Length Sampling Algorithms to Transport Trough a 2-D Binary Stochastic Mixture (2003)
  • Comment on Anomalous neutron Compton scattering from molecular hydrogen (2007)
  • Moreh, Block, and Danon Reply (2007)