A reference facility for the calibration and inter-comparison of active and passive detectors in broad neutron fields has been available at CERN since 1992. A positively charged hadron beam (a mixture of protons and pions) with momentum of usually 120 GeV/c hits a copper target, 50 cm thick and 7 cm in diameter. The secondary particles produced in the interaction traverse a shield, at 90° with respect to the direction of the incoming beam, made of either 80 to 160 cm of concrete or 40 cm of iron. Behind the iron shield, the resulting neutron spectrum has a maximum at about 1 MeV, with an additional high-energy component. Behind the 80 cm concrete shield, the neutron spectrum has a second pronounced maximum at about 70 MeV and resembles the high-energy component of the radiation field created by cosmic rays at commercial flight altitudes. This paper describes the facility, reports on the latest neutron spectral measurements, gives an overview of the most important experiments performed by the various collaborating institutions over the past years, addresses the possible application of the facility to measurements related to the space programme and discusses the latest calculations performed in view of its development for such use.

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Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells and thermoluminescent detectors (TLD-700) were used for physical and biological verification of heavy ion treatment planning. Experiments were performed in a cylindrical water phantom, in some cases with lung and bone equivalent material in front of the target volume. The results confirm the possibility of using thermoluminescent detectors for a quantitative verification of dose distributions. CHO cells can be used at least for qualitative dose verification.

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