Brookhaven scientists are in the forefront of technological advances that may allow law enforcement and Homeland Security personnel to detect and locate sources of radiation, such as the so-called “dirty bombs” that terrorists may attempt to deploy in U.S cities. Work is ongoing for the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency to create new and more effective radiation detector systems. Work includes:
Precise isotope identification will help law enforcement differentiate between potentially dangerous radioactive materials and otherwise harmless radiation sources.. Detectors based on scintillators, which convert x-ray energy into visible light, operate at room temperature, but they have poor ability to identify isotopes. Brookhaven is working to combine the advantages of both minus their drawbacks by developing detectors based on cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) crystals. The CZT detectors meet the need for portable devices that can detect and image radiation without the false alarms characteristic of many conventional systems. They are now being deployed in niche applications but fat greater standoff distances, they begin to lose performance ability. The group has been exploring a “fast” neutron double scatter camera and are extensively testing it in collaboration with other DOE laboratories and countries.