Handheld Camera Detects Gamma Ray Radiation
A new imaging device developed by University of Michigan engineers can detect gamma ray radiation and identify its source for operators. The detection of radiation has a variety of uses, including the ability to help clean up after a nuclear accident. This gamma ray camera is battery-operated and can be used at room temperature, unlike existing devices that require cryogenic freezing.
Transcript
00:00:01 the department defends the paranormal energy department homeland security and some industry like obviously the Japanese nuclear power in the victor interested to have handheld very compact gamma ray imaging devices that can tell the operator that distribution of radioactive materials and their identities and our device is the first of this current that can image higher
00:00:32 energy gamma rays from say nuclear power plants the reason this project has been unique because the conventional gomery high performance detectors require cryogenically cooled in liquid nitrogen and our device can operate at room temperatures and so our device is very much more convenient portable and can be run on batteries when gamma rays interact with semiconductors they
00:01:04 produce electron hole pairs basically we apply electric field and collect electrons unto our array of pixelated anodes and our device can measure not only how much charge collided on each end on pixels but also can read out the drift time which tells us the depth of interaction so our detector even they use single crystals but we can know the three-dimensional positions and energy
00:01:35 depositions of radiation interaction your sensors which is a unique technology pioneered by our group we have an optical camera on both sides each of the camera has a fisheye lens that capture more than 180 degree optical images so using both the images we can form a for high optical image surrounding the detector we will appoint the material inside of the plastic disc
00:02:10 it is emitting radiation so we said they're here then we can overlay with the gamma ray image so that you can visualize what the camry sars is located in japanese nuclear accident there's a lot of radioactive materials contaminated environment and this instrument will be very useful to identify the contaminants and their distribution and will help people to
00:02:44 clean up you