Award Data

Certain lanthanide halides have significantly higher light output than NaI:Tl, the comparison standard for scintillators, plus other important properties, including fast decay times and excellent proportionality. Unfortunately, lanthanide halides grown by traditional melt processes have high production costs and limited availability. Crystals are usually limited to about 5 cm x 5 cm, right cylinde ...

It is proposed to develop a novel process for growth of high quality CZT crystals for nuclear detection applications. Currently the THM process is the technology of choice for production of high quality CZT crystals. This process, however, suffers from extremely low growth rates. The development effort proposed here will seek to increase the crystal growth rate by 5-10 times the current levels ...

Three nuclides are especially useful in detecting thermalized neutrons: helium-3, lithium-6 , and boron-10. Since current demand will deplete reserves of helium-3 in roughly two years, there is a large desire to develop detectors that have the capacity to replace helium-3 tubes. In this proposal we spell out our plan to adapt Neotron''s already developed fission neutron detector into a high effic ...

The complexity of Atmospheric Transport and Dispersion (ATD) modeling requires physically consistent weather data evolving in both space and time. Spatially and/or temporally averaged data found in climatological products is not suitable for ATD modeling. The proposed solution for providing "typical day" meteorological data couples innovative search techniques applied to long-range historical arch ...

Active interrogation holds the most promise for detecting heavily shielded materials at a distance. This effort will use pulsed neutron excitation of fission reactions in the target being inspected in conjunction with an imaging detector. Special nuclear material (SNM) that is present will undergo fission reactions that generate prompt and delayed neutrons which will be emitted by the target. Th ...

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear missiles and “dirty bombs” are a serious threat in the world today and especially to the well-being of the United States. Preventing the spread of these nuclear weapons has reached a state of heightened urgency in recent years, more so since the events on September 11, 2001 and its aftermath. The presence of nuclear weapons can ...

High-resolution scintillation crystals and crystal arrays are important components of current and future handheld and arrayed detectors (used for DOD applications) and scintillation spectrometers (routinely used in high energy physics research, medical imaging, diffraction, homeland security, nuclear waste clean-up, nuclear treaty verification and safeguards, and geological exploration). Unfortun ...

Recent advances in scintillator materials research have resulted in the development of lanthanum halides detectors. These detectors offer improved energy resolution, faster emission and excellent temperature dependency and linearity characteristics. However, the lanthanum halides crystals have not yet been grown to preferred large sizes. Moreover, this material possesses a fatal drawback of being ...

THE PROPOSED FIBLOC SENSOR PROVIDES AN ECONOMIC MEANS TO PROTECT, LITERALLY, MILES OF A PREFERRED PERIMETER REGION AGAINST UNAUTHORIZED INTRUSIONS. THE OPTICAL FIBERS EMPLOYED INT HE FIBLOC SENSOR PROPAGATE CW OR PULSED INFRARED LIGHT SIGNALS WHOSE TRANSMISSION AND/OR REFLECTION SENSITIVITY IS AFFECTED BY MECHANICAL PRESSURE SUCH AS WOULD BE PRODUCED BY THE DISTENSION OF SURFACED MOUNTED FIBERS AL ...

THE PHASE I EXPERIMENTAL EFFORT WILL DEMONSTRATE THE FEASIBILITY OF A FIELD WORTHY GROUND MOTION SENSOR TO REPLACE PIEZO-ELECTRIC ACCELEROMETERS FOR CONVENTIONAL EXPLOSIVES AND NUCLEAR TESTING. THE OUTPUT SIGNALS OF PIEZO-ELECTRIC ACCELEROMETERS MUST BE INTEGRATED TWICE TO DETERMINE GROUND MOTIONS. THIS PROCESS REDUCES SYSTEM ACCURACY AND MEASUREMENT BANDWIDTH. ADDITIONALLY, AS PIEZO-ELECTRIC SENS ...