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Associated Particle Imaging Development

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Tech ID: 413
Project Overview
Associated Particle Imaging is a non-intrusive, single-sided technique that uses fast neutrons to interrogate sealed containers and display the locations, shapes, sizes, and elemental compositions of their contents.
Technology Description
A Sealed Tube Neutron Generator (STNG) produces 14 MeV neutrons. The neutrons leave the collision site in a direction antiparallel to the particles. The particle hits a two-dimensional position-sensitive detector and starts a clock. At the same time, the neutron heads off toward the region to be interrogated. If the neutron interacts with target material in the interrogation region, and if a gamma ray is produced and subsequently detected within a preset period of time, then the clock is stopped upon detection of the gamma ray. The particle's location on the two-dimensional detector gives the neutron direction of flight. The elapsed time between clock "start" and "stop" provides information that tells how far the neutron travelled before hitting the target. These pieces of information ultimately give the x,y,z location of the neutron-target interaction. Furthermore, the energy of the gamma ray is characteristic of the material that was hit. Thus, the gamma spectrum allows one to identify the elemental composition of the material in the target region as a function of position.

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