Portable device could detect illicit radioactive material

The device is designed to work at shipping ports, train stations, truck stops and anywhere that potentially concealing nuclear material could be used to make a so-called ‘dirty bomb’.

The project is being undertaken by researchers at New Hampshire University’s Space Science Center (SSC), in partnership with Michigan Aerospace.

The technology is based on a Neutron Spectroscope (Nspect) originally designed and built at the SSC for space-based missions studying high-energy neutrons and gamma rays emanating from the sun and distant astronomical objects.

Michigan Aerospace is responsible for the support engineering that will turn the benchtop instrument into a rugged field-deployable device equipped with a graphical user interface and live video-imaging capability.

‘What people have to do now is go into a building or a container and fish around in the hope of finding the source,’ said project lead James Ryan of SSC.

Indeed, current devices based on Geiger counters simply click at a higher rate the closer they are to a source of radiation and cannot filter out the ever-present background radiation. By contrast, the neutron camera records every neutron that interacts with the instrument and puts each one in a specific ‘bucket’ based on what direction that neutron came from.