How lasers can help with nuclear nonproliferation monitoring

Phys.org  April 13, 2020
To study hydrodynamics and evolution of uranium (U) atomic and uranium oxide (UO) molecular emission in filament-produced U plasmas researchers in the US (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, industry, University of Arizona) performed two-dimensional plume and spectral imaging. The results highlight that filament ablation of U plasmas gives a cylindrical plume morphology with an appearance of plume splitting into slow- and fast-moving components at later times of its evolution. Emission from the slow-moving component shows no distinct spectral features (i.e. broadband-like) and is contributed in part by nanoparticles generated during ultrafast laser ablation. They found U atoms and U oxide molecules co-exist in the filament produced plasma, which can be attributed to the generation of low-temperature plasma conditions during filament ablation. These insights further progress toward a reliable, non-contact method for remote detection of uranium elements and isotopes, with implications for nonproliferation safeguards, explosion monitoring and treaty verification…read more.
TECHNICAL ARTICLE

1 / 1Superfast lasers make a plasma plume that can be used to determine materials and their chemistry. Credit: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

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