RE: New Detector

["Kim D. Merritt" <k.merritt@larc.nasa.gov>]

Actually, I think you are looking at two different systems.  Simon's

tunnel junction detectors are rather large, or at least they were a year

and a half ago when I left LLNL.  


Also, for those of you questioning wether someone is simply jumping on

the homeland security bandwagon, you should probably consider whether

this work has been in progress long before homeland security was even a

phrase (which it has).  I believe that the tunnel junction stuff was

being developed as a spectroscopy technique for physics.  If you

want to ask Simon questions, why not contact him directly?  He is in

the LLNL phone book, and since he is not a health physicist will not be

monitoring this list server.


At 12:37 PM 4/18/03, you wrote:

This sounds neat, but Labov's transition edge sensors are very small and must operate very cold.  Their claim to fame is extremely good energy resolution, which translates to sensitivity with respect to discriminating closely spaced gamma lines from background.  Fewer photopeak counts are therefore needed to identify a radioisotope, but the total interaction probability and the peak-to-compton remain very small.  Also, I don't know if the helium refrigerator needed to cool the devices are included in the cell phone.
 

F. P. Doty, Ph. D.
Principal Member of Technical Staff
Sandia National Labs
7011 East Avenue
Livermore, CA

Kim Merritt, RRPT
Radiation/Laser Safety Officer
HazMed, Inc.
NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton, VA
(757)864-3210
<mailto:k.merritt@larc.nasa.gov>