Multiple monoenergetic gamma radiography (MMGR) with a compact superconducting cyclotron
Name
5.0002201.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
895.32 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
aa2e982167f1ad2f02193d1075fe93e6
Author(s)
Lee, Hin Y
Henderson, Brian S
Nelson, Roberts G
Danagoulian, Areg
Date Issued
2020
Journal
Journal of Applied Physics
Publisher
AIP Publishing
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2020 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license Smuggling of special nuclear materials and nuclear devices through borders and ports of entry constitutes a major risk to global security. Technologies are needed to reliably screen the flow of commerce for the presence of high-Z materials such as uranium and plutonium. Here, we present an experimental proof-of-concept of a technique that uses inelastic (p, p0) nuclear reactions to generate monoenergetic photons, which provide means to measure the areal density and the effective-Z (Zeff) of an object with an accuracy surpassing that achieved by current methods. We use an ION-12SC superconducting 12 MeV proton cyclotron to produce 4.4, 6.1, 6.9, and 7.1 MeV photons from a variety of nuclear reactions. Using these photons in a transmission mode, we show that we are able to accurately reconstruct the areal densities and Zeff of a test object. This methodology could enable mobile applications to screen commercial cargoes with high material specificity, providing a means of distinguishing common cargo materials from high-Z materials that include uranium and plutonium.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0002201
