10/4/2010 Colloquium - Brian Quiter

Brian Quiter Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Event Info

Title:  Nuclear Resonance Fluorescence for Pu Measurement in Spent Nuclear Fuel

Date: Oct 4, 2010
Location: 3105 Etcheverry Hall
Time: 4-5pm

Abstract

Nuclear resonance fluoresce (NRF) induces isotope-specific signatures that may be used to non-destructively identify the composition of an examined material. The potential to use this process to identify fissile materials in cargo has led to the measurement of NRF signatures of fissile actinides, as well as research devoted to the development of advanced energetic photon sources. Nuclear safeguards and border border security share the goal of non-destructively measuring actinides in large targets, however nuclear safeguards also quantifies these actinide concentrations. The recently-measured NRF signatures of actinides allow for an estimation of the utility of NRF measurements for quantifying fissile material contained in spent nuclear fuel. This nuclear safeguards application of NRF will be discussed for both presently available photon source and detector technology as well as for proposed sources under development.

Speaker Biography

Brian received his B.S. M.S. and Ph.D. all from the UC Berkeley's department of nuclear engineering. After finishing his B.S. in 2003, he went straight into a Ph.D. program but decided to try his hand in consulting after finishing his M.S. project concentrating on cosmic ray radio-activation of materials. After a brief stint in profession beer brewing, he returned to academia in 2007 and received his Ph. D. this August. During his time as a student, Brian has worked at Lawrence Livermore, Lawrence Berkeley, Idaho, and Los Alamos National Laboratories, as well as the Gran Sasso Lab in Italy. Most of his research work has been devoted to applying nuclear physics towards solving nuclear security problems.