Instruments better able to detect evidence of nuclear weapons could be in production in a couple of years because of a patented process developed by a team led by Sheng Dai of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. At the heart of the method is a room-temperature hybrid sol-gel process, which simplifies manufacturing and results in a more sensitive and more versatile detector. Instead of employing commonly used high-temperature fiber optics, which are costly to manufacture and limited in the number of activators they can accommodate, the ORNL technique simplifies the manufacturing process and allows different coatings to be applied directly to the detector. The research takes advantage of recent breakthroughs in material sciences and applies them to advanced neutron sensors. Dai, of the lab's Chemical Sciences Division, will be presenting this research at the 227th national meeting of the American Chemical Society later this month in Anaheim, Calif.
Menu