Development of an Intense Pulsed Characteristic γ-Ray Source for Active Interrogation of Special Nuclear Material

Author

Schumer, J.W. ; Commisso, R.J. ; Hinshelwood, D.D. ; Mosher, D. ; Murphy, D.P. ; Ottinger, P.F. ; Phipps, D.G. ; Stephanakis, S.J. ; Weber, B.V. ; Young, F.C. ; Cooperstein, G. ; Blackburn, B.W. ; Jones, J.L. ; Johnson, J. ; Valles, N.O.

Author_Institution

Naval Res. Lab., Washington

Volume

2

fYear

2007

fDate

Oct. 26 2007-Nov. 3 2007

Firstpage

1026

Lastpage

1032

Abstract

An intense source of characteristic gamma-rays is developed as a potential probe to identify special nuclear material. A pinch-reflex ion diode is operated on the Gamble II pulsed power generator to produce proton beams with 270-kA peak current and 2.0-MV peak voltage. These beams bombard a PTFE (Teflon) target to produce characteristic gamma-rays by the ¹⁹F(p,alphagamma)¹⁶O reaction with energies of 6.13, 6.92, and 7.12 MeV and with an intensity of 3.1x10¹¹ gamma-rays into 4pi in a single 50-ns duration pulse. Simple ballistic transport is used to transport the proton beam one meter so that the gamma-ray signal is separated in time and space from the diode bremsstrahlung pulse.

Keywords

gamma-ray production; ¹⁹F(p,alpha+gamma)¹⁶O; Gamble II pulsed power generator; PTFE target; active interrogation; ballistic transport; intense pulsed characteristic gamma-ray source; pinch-reflex ion diode; special nuclear material; Cathodes; Conductors; Delay; Diodes; Neutrons; Nuclear and plasma sciences; Particle beams; Power generation; Pulse generation; Radiation detectors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2007. NSS '07. IEEE

Conference_Location

Honolulu, HI

ISSN

1095-7863

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-0922-8

Electronic_ISBN

1095-7863

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NSSMIC.2007.4437187

Filename

4437187