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Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry for Detection of Contamination of HEU

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Tech ID: 3019
Project Overview
With an accurate and dependable measurement of residual plutonium, the less stringent requirements for storing the materials in uranium storage facilities will result in very significant cost savings to the DOE, for both short-term and long- term life cycle costs.

Technology Description
 Evaluation of Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) is being done for the detection of plutonium contamination of uranium. SIMS has phenomenal sensitivity for surface-based contamination, especially when reactive ion source beams are used. In addition, the detection area may be vary widely as needed from relatively large surface areas of several mm2, to very small surface areas only a few 10's of microns in diameter. The sputtering process that is used to generate the detected ions allows the probing of subsurface species, as well as those located directly on the surface. The sensitivity to chemical state and surrounding matrix materials may be minimized by the appropriate selection of ion source parameters. It is believed that this technique offers the flexibility and sensitivity needed to address the issues of the removal of plutonium contamination from uranium.

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