Development of a portable ambient temperature radiometric assaying instrument

There is a strong need for portable radiometric instrumentation that can accurately confirm the presence of nuclear materials and allow isotopic analysis of radionuclides in the field. To fulfill this need we are developing a hand-held, non-cryogenic, low-power gamma- and x-ray measurement and analysis instrument that can both search and then accurately verify the presence of nuclear materials. We report on the use of cadmium zinc telluride detectors, signal processing electronics, and the new field-portable instrument based on the MicroNOMAD Multichannel Analyzer from EG&G ORTBC. We also describe the isotopic analysis that allows uranium enrichment measurements to be made accurately in the field