Portable, High Resolution Gamma Ray Imaging System for Radioisotope Detection, Localization and Identification

Preventing the entry of radioactive materials and nuclear weapons into the United States is at a state of heightened urgency in recent years. Detecting and identifying potentially dangerous radioactive sources is difficult and better spectroscopic gamma ray imaging systems would significantly help in securing the borders of the country. The ability of gamma cameras to image radioactive sources provides an inherent advantage in signal-to-noise ratio relative to background. The availability of a low cost, portable and potentially hand held gamma camera with high sensitivity and good energy resolution would give security personnel a powerful tool to detect, image and identify nuclear material. Unfortunately, no existing gamma camera system meets the needs of Homeland Security. To address this, the proposed program combines several state-of-the-art technologies to produce an instrument that will be lighter and perform better than existing systems. The key concept is to incorporate the latest developments in cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) detector design into RMD?s RadCAM? video/gamma camera system and state-of-the-art ASICs. This will allow us to make the instrument smaller and significantly lighter while providing substantially improved energy resolution of better than 2% with adequate spatial resolution to locate sources of radiation.