Development of Detection and Measurement Technologies for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Security at JAEA

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has been conducting research and development projects on technologies of special nuclear material detection and measurement for nuclear non-proliferation and security. The activity is based on the Japan’s commitment at the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit. Since then, JAEA has successfully carried out the projects under the subsidiary for nuclear security promotion of MEXT (the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan) under the international collaboration with EC-JRC, US-DOE, and Japanese institutes and universities. In March 2018, the first stage of a project “Development of Active Neutron NDA Techniques” has been finished. This project is for basic development of four neutron interrogation techniques for nuclear material analysis (i.e., differential die-away analysis (DDA), neutron resonance transmission analysis (NRTA), prompt gamma-ray analysis (PGA), and delayed gamma-ray analysis (DGA)). Those techniques are complementally used in analysis of a nuclear material object. Measurement of highly radioactive samples is in the scope of the next stage of the development. Aiming at continuous Pu monitoring in highly radioactive waste, neutron and gamma-ray activity measurements and simulation works were also carried out in a three-year project “Advanced Pu Monitoring Technical Development”. For detection of nuclear material objects in a heavy shield, development of nuclear resonance fluorescence (NRF) NDA technique is in progress in a five-year project. NRF is a gamma-ray interrogation technique, which utilize nuclear resonance excitation/de-excitation induced by a monochromatic high intensity gamma-ray beam. In this presentation, recent achievements and current projects will be introduced briefly.