Application of the SIMNRA code to calibrate the analyzing magnet associated with a Van de Graaff accelerator

This work reports on a fast method of calibrating the analyzer magnet associated with a Van de Graaff accelerator based on the SIMNRA simulation of the backscattered elastic proton spectra produced by the proton bombardment of thick silicon. Several proton spectra were measured with proton beam energies in the 1.6 -2.3 MeV energy region where two resonances in ²⁸Si(p, p)²⁸Si elastic scattering occur at 1.645 and 2.087 MeV. Also the ¹²C(d, p)¹³C nuclear reaction was applied to calibrate the analyzing magnet. A thick carbon target was bombarded with several deuteron beam energies in the 1.4 MeV range. The nuclear reaction proton spectra were also simulated using the SIMNRA code. However, in this case, it was not necessary to choose the deuterium beam energies near a nuclear reaction energy resonance. The comparison of the analyzer magnet calibration with this procedure is in good agreement with the calibration using the ²⁷Al(p, γ)²⁸Si method.