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Updated: Oct 6, 2025

Laser-heating and Radiance Spectrometry for the Study of Nuclear Materials in Conditions Simulating a Nuclear Power Plant Accident
Published on: December 14, 2017
Fast neutron activation of ubiquitous materials
M Lee1, E B Norman2, O A Akindele1
1University of California Berkeley, CA, USA.
Abstract:
Nuclear explosions expose ubiquitous materials to large numbers of neutrons, producing a variety of radioactive isotopes. To simulate such phenomena from both fission and thermonuclear explosions, we irradiated 29 different targets with approximately 3 and 14 MeV neutrons and measured the beta-delayed gamma rays using germanium detectors. For each neutron energy, the expected radioisotopes, half-lives, and gamma ray energies were deduced. From measurements of the ratios of activities of the radionuclides produced by neutron irradiations, we were able to identify several materials that are particularly sensitive to the neutron energy spectra.
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