Emerging Nanomaterials for Nuclear Radiation Detectors
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Emerging Nanomaterials for Nuclear Radiation Detectors Marek Osinski Center for High Technology Materials, University of New Mexico, 1313 Goddard SE, Albuquerque, NM, 87106-4343 ABSTRACT Nanosize devices have attracted tremendous interest over the last few years for a wide range of biomedical, biochemical sensing, and optoelectronic applications. So far, however, their potential has largely eluded the nuclear detection community. In this paper, the current status of the emerging nanomaterials for nuclear detection applications is reviewed. Recent preliminary data are presented, and the potential improvements in the detector cost, reliability, and performance the nanosize devices have to offer are discussed. I. INTRODUCTION Nuclear radiation detectors are becoming increasingly important for a wide range of applications, including the nuclear forensic analysis, homeland security against terrorist threats, monitoring treaty compliance, counterproliferation, long term monitoring of nuclear waste storage sites, biomedical imaging (PET, radiotherapy), environmental safety, industrial defectoscopy, oil well logging, and high energy physics. An ideal nuclear detector should combine a number of features presently distributed among many different types of detectors: high energy resolution, high sensitivity, high efficiency, room-temperature (RT) operation, scalability, robustness, etc. For example, high energy resolution of better than 0.2% at 1.33 MeV can be achieved using bulk Ge detectors [1]. However, the need to cool down the detector to 110 K results in a “compact” system of a vacuum cleaner size. CdZnTe detectors offer good RT performance with 1% energy resolution at 662 keV [2], but their linear size is limited to a few cm. The most commonly used NaI:Tl+ scintillating crystals can be grown in large size and operate at RT, but at the expense of poorer energy resolution of ~6-7% at 662 keV [3], high hygroscopicity, and poor shock resistance. The tradeoffs between different detectors become even more apparent when other parameters are considered, such as high speed, low cost, good proportionality, high stopping efficiency, portability, resistance to shock, and so on. Nanotechnology offers new prospects for meeting those competing requirements. Nanosize devices have attracted tremendous interest over the last few years for a wide range of biomedical, biochemical sensing, and optoelectronic applications. So far, however, their potential has largely eluded the nuclear detection community. In this paper, we review the current status of the emerging nanomaterials for nuclear detection applications, discussing the existing preliminary data, and the potential improvements in the detector cost, reliability, and performance the nanosize devices have to offer. We argue that, compared to currently used bulk crystals or scintillating particles of the micrometer size, the nanocrystals (NCs) do offer the prospect of significantly improved performance. Due to their small size, they are expected to have better solubility i
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