The Low Energy Positron Toroidal Accumulator (LEPTA) at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) proposed for generation of positronium in flight has been adopted for positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS). The positron injector generates continuous slow positron beam with positron energy range between 50 eV and 35 keV. The radioactive ²²Na isotope is used. In distinction to popular tungsten foil, here the solid neon is used as moderator. It allows to obtain the beam intensity of about 10⁵ e⁺/s width energy spectrum characterized by full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 3.4 eV and a tail to lower energies of about 30 eV. The paper covers the characteristic of variable energy positron beam at the LEPTA facility: parameters, the rule of moderation, scheme of injector, and transportation of positrons into the sample chamber. Recent status of the project and its development in the field of PAS is discussed. As an example, the measurement of the positron diffusion length in pure iron is demonstrated.

We report in this article the comparison of the subsurface zones (SZs) in austenitic stainless steel 304 samples created by three cutting techniques, i.e., the laser cutting (LC), abrasive water jet (AWJ), and traditional milling cutting (MC). The crystal lattice defects distribution in this zone were investigated using the positron annihilation method. It was shown that the MC creates the great number mainly edge dislocations decorated by vacancies. Their concentration decreases with the increase of the depth from the cut surface. The total depth of the SZ is extended up to 150 μm from the cut surface. Similar dependency was observed for the AWJ machining but the total depth is much lower, i.e., 40 μm. The laser cut machining generates the zone with the lowest concentration of defects which does not vary with the depth. However, LC affects the sample up to the depth of about 500 μm. The degree of the surface roughness is similar for laser cut and AWJ, but for the MC it is five times smaller.