87
Portable
Electronics for Multi-Channel Digital Coincidence X-Ray
Spectroscopy--X-Ray
Instrumentation Associates, 8450 Central Avenue, Fremont, CA
94560; 510-494-9020
Dr.
Michael Momayezi, Principal Investigator, momayezi@xia.com
Dr.
William K. Warburton, Business Official, bill@xia.com
DOE
Grant No. DE-FG03-01ER83320
Amount:
$100,000
The United States government sponsors various
programs to monitor the release of fission products into the air.
Areas of concern are containment failures in nuclear power plants as well
as the detonation of nuclear bombs by rogue states.
One way of detecting these events is to monitor the radioactivity of
small airborne dust particles that are transported around the globe.
Another is to assay the radioactivity of local soil samples, looking for
tell-tale signs of fallout. Hence,
there is a need for a compact g-ray
spectrometer system that can support a small number of radiation detectors.
By requiring a small coincidence window across events from multiple g-ray
detectors, sensitivity of this instrument can be increased by several orders of
magnitude. This project
will produce a compact instrument that can accommodate a varying number of
detectors and measure g-radiation in coincidence across the members
of a detector array. The instrument
will provide a scalable, multi-detector g-ray
spectrometer with coincidence and pulse shape analysis capabilities within a
single enclosure, without requiring any external circuitry, and accessible
through a single PCI computer interface. Phase
I will create a 4-channel prototype and demonstrate coincidence spectroscopy
across an array of detectors in a portable system.
Commercial Applications And Other Benefits as described by awardee: A system that provides g-ray spectroscopy for multiple detectors, which is portable and provides access through a single standard PCI computer interface, should be of great use in counting rooms and other applications where it is essential to quickly configure spectroscopy setups with a minimum time and expertise required. Also, small-scale nuclear physics experiments, which cannot afford to build their own dedicated data acquisition systems, would benefit.