NRF-BASED ISOTOPE MATERIAL DETECTION EXPERIMENTS WITH THE LLNL T- REX MEGA-RAY MACHINE

Year
2011
Author(s)
C. Hagmann - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
F. Albert - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
S.G. Anderson - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
C.P.J. Barty - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
G.A. Anderson - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
M.S. Johnson - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
M.Y. Shverdin - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
C.W. Siders - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
S.M. Betts - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
D.P. McNabb - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Abstract
We present the experimental characterization and nuclear resonance fluorescence (NRF) based applications of T-REX (Thomson-Radiated Extreme X-rays), a bright, tunable, laser-based mono- energetic gamma-ray (MEGa-ray) source at LLNL. The gamma-rays are produced by Compton scattering of laser photons off relativistic electrons accelerated by a linac. Because the source is narrow band and potentially brighter than any other existing light source above 0.5 MeV, it will have potential applications in homeland security and special nuclear materials assay and detection. We have investigated such applications by detecting the NRF line of 7Li at 0.478 MeV.