Radiographic imaging with cosmic-ray muons

Borozdin, K.; Hogan, G. E.; Morris, Christopher; Priedhorsky, W. C.; Saunders, Alexander; Schultz, L.; Teasdale, Margaret E.

doi:10.1038/422277a

Cited by 333 publications

(242 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…X-rays. Since E. P. George measured the thickness of the ice burden above the Guthega-Munyang tunnel in Australia in the 1950s [1] and L. W. Alvarez conducted his search for hidden chambers in the Second Pyramid of Chephren in Egypt [2] a decade later, there has been a wealth of wide-ranging applications using cosmicray muons for imaging purposes, such as in the field of vol- 1 Current affiliation: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz canology [3,4] and nuclear contraband detection for national security [5,6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The design and performance of a scintillating-fibre tracker for the cosmic-ray muon tomography of legacy nuclear waste containers

Clarkson

Hamilton

Hoek

et al. 2014

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A:

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Tomographic imaging techniques using the Coulomb scattering of cosmic-ray muons are increasingly being exploited for the non-destructive assay of shielded containers in a wide range of applications. One such application is the characterisation of legacy nuclear waste materials stored within industrial containers. The design, assembly and performance of a prototype muon tomography system developed for this purpose are detailed in this work. This muon tracker comprises four detection modules, each containing orthogonal layers of Saint-Gobain BCF-10 2 mm-pitch plastic scintillating fibres. Identification of the two struck fibres per module allows the reconstruction of a space point, and subsequently, the incoming and Coulomb-scattered muon trajectories. These allow the container content, with respect to the atomic number Z of the scattering material, to be determined through reconstruction of the scattering location and magnitude. On each detection layer, the light emitted by the fibre is detected by a single Hamamatsu H8500 MAPMT with two fibres coupled to each pixel via dedicated pairing schemes developed to ensure the identification of the struck fibre. The PMT signals are read out to QDCs and interpreted via custom data acquisition and analysis software.The design and assembly of the detector system are detailed and presented alongside results from performance studies with data collected after construction. These results reveal high stability during extended collection periods with detection efficiencies in the region of 80% per layer. Minor misalignments of millimetre order have been identified and corrected in software. A first image reconstructed from a test configuration of materials has been obtained using software based on the Maximum Likelihood Expectation Maximisation algorithm. The results highlight the high spatial resolution provided by the detector system. Clear discrimination between the low, medium and high-Z materials assayed is also observed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The design and performance of a scintillating-fibre tracker for the cosmic-ray muon tomography of legacy nuclear waste containers

Clarkson

Hamilton

Hoek

et al. 2014

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A:

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“…Muon tomography can partially achieve this and utilises penetrating natural cosmic rays to produce 3D reconstructions of opaque objects via attenuation of the flux or coulombic scattering of particles from a single point [11,12,13]. Muon tomography is non-destructive, is sensitive to the materials atomic number and produces high Z-number contrast images.…”

Section: Current Monitoring Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating laser-driven Bremsstrahlung radiation sources for imaging and analysis of nuclear waste packages

Jones

Brenner

Stitt

et al. 2016

Journal of Hazardous Materials

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A small scale sample nuclear waste package, consisting of a 28mm diameter uranium penny encased in grout, was imaged by absorption contrast radiography using a single pulse exposure from an x-ray source driven by a highpower laser. The Vulcan laser was used to deliver a focused pulse of photons to a tantalum foil, in order to generate a bright burst of highly penetrating x-rays (with energy >500keV), with a source size of <0.5mm. BAS-TR and BAS-SR image plates were used for image capture, alongside a newly developed Thalium doped Caesium Iodide scintillator-based detector coupled to CCD chips. The uranium penny was clearly resolved to sub-mm accuracy over a 30cm 2 scan area from a single shot acquisition. In addition, neutron generation was demonstrated in situ with the x-ray beam, with a single shot, thus demonstrating the potential for multi-modal criticality testing of waste materials. This feasibility study successfully demonstrated non-destructive radiography of encapsulated, high density, nuclear material. With recent developments of high-power laser systems, to 10Hz operation, a laser-driven multi-modal beamline for waste monitoring applications is envisioned.

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“…Polarized muon source can also be applied as a suitable probe in many disciplines such as material science, biomedical, superconductor physics and so on [5] . Benefitting from its high penetrability, a muon can go through more than hundreds of g/cm 2 which is much longer than X-ray radiography [6] . Therefore, muon radiography can be applied on imaging of dense object such as nuclear materials [7][8][9] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new method on diagnostics of muons produced by a short pulse laser

Zhang¹,

Li²,

Shan³

et al. 2017

High Pow Laser Sci Eng

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Muons produced by a short pulse laser can serve as a new type of muon source having potential advantages of high intensity, small source emittance, short pulse duration and low cost. To validate it in experiments, a suitable muon diagnostics system is needed since high muon flux generated by a short pulse laser shot is always accompanied by high radiation background, which is quite different from cases in general muon researches. A detection system is proposed to distinguish muon signals from radiation background by measuring the muon lifetime. It is based on the scintillator detector with water and lead shields, in which water is used to adjust energies of muons stopped in the scintillator and lead to against radiation background. A Geant4 simulation on the performance of the detection system shows that efficiency up to 52% could be arrived for low-energy muons around 200 MeV and this efficiency decreases to 14% for high-energy muons above 1000 MeV. The simulation also shows that the muon lifetime can be derived properly by measuring attenuation of the scintilla light of electrons from muon decays inside the scintillator detector.

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Radiographic imaging with cosmic-ray muons

Cited by 333 publications

References 3 publications

The design and performance of a scintillating-fibre tracker for the cosmic-ray muon tomography of legacy nuclear waste containers

The design and performance of a scintillating-fibre tracker for the cosmic-ray muon tomography of legacy nuclear waste containers

Evaluating laser-driven Bremsstrahlung radiation sources for imaging and analysis of nuclear waste packages

A new method on diagnostics of muons produced by a short pulse laser

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