Award Data

There is a growing need to accurately characterize nuclear materials not only for nuclear safeguards and nonproliferation treaty verification but also for forensics and provenance. Presently, nuclear material identification requires samples to be collected and sent to laboratories for analysis using large and expensive equipment, such as inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometers (ICP-MS) or se ...

To fully understand the combustion dynamics when chemical warfare agents are detonated, fast time-scale diagnostics are needed. While computational modeling may provide insight into the different processes, experimental measurements are needed to verify and validate these models. Since the detonation or combustion of chemical agents can result in optically thick fireballs, innovative techniques mu ...

We propose developing new instrumentation based on swept-wavelength external cavity quantum cascade lasers (swept-ECQCLs), to acquire physical/chemical data on chemical weapon agent (CWA) and simulant properties in laboratory-scale explosive testing, and to improve/validate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes. In Phase I, we demonstrated laboratory measurements of CWA simulant combustion usin ...

Physitron proposes the development of a Thermal Neutron Beam Concentrator for use in detecting strategic nuclear material (SNM) such as U, Pu, Th, etc. A compact neutron generator developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab will provide 2.4 MeV neutrons that will be moderated, concentrated into a high flux beam, and propagated in air across distances up to three meters. Any SNM in the beam's path ...

Nuclear weapons effects simulators depend upon capacitor banks for storage and delivery of energy for the radiation sources. Power conditioning elements are typically located in the power flow chain between the storage capacitors and the radiation sources, and these elements generally constitute a major portion of the overall cost of the simulator facility. Low inductance capacitors offer the po ...

To address the DTRA need to prevent terrorist nuclear attacks by early identification of radiological dispersal devices (RDD) and improvised nuclear devices (IND), Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new low-cost large area Advanced Radiation Detector (ARAD), highly sensitive to gamma and X-rays with energies up to 1 MeV. The ARAD is based on NaI(Tl) scintillator and large arr ...

With the advent of high-density low-power sub-20nm technology processes and circuits with tens-of-billions of transistors, radiation-induced single-event effects present a new set of design challenges for terrestrial applications. Developing reliable single-event effect resilient microelectronics in these modern technology nodes is a resource and time-intensive endeavor that further requires valid ...

Penetrating radiation holds the greatest promise as a non-intrusive means of destroying biological and chemical agents inside sealed containers, if the appropriate form is used. There are two recognized means including exposure to neutrons or application of pulses of gamma rays. Because of the pervasiveness of neutrons and the extremely large threat of collateral damage to humans, neutrons are onl ...

The use of WMDs and IEDs by covert insurgents and terrorists poses a significant risk to U.S. military forces and civilians. The capability to execute rapid forensic DNA analysis to identify individuals who manufactured and transported these threatening devices is of paramount importance to military mission, homeland security and civilian safety. Current DNA forensic analyses are time-consuming, b ...

Alameda Applied Sciences Corporation (AASC) proposes to replace the current return rods in the anode of the plasma radiation source (PRS) load, with an annular, supersonic gas jet: an innovation that could drastically reduce source region debris along the line-of-sight (LOS) of the test object, in a z-pinch, soft x-ray, weapons effects simulator, and make the debris mitigation system (DMS) simpler ...