Adiabatic Thermopile for Radiation Dosimetry

"Measurements of fluence from a Plasma Radiation Source (PRS) are critical to the performance of accurate Nuclear Weapon Effects (NWE) experiments. Fast, total stopping calorimeters have been demonstrated to provide a robust, reusable, economic sensor forfluence measurements. However, the output of these sensors is a few millivolts and thus high signal to noise recording is difficult to achieve, particularly at early times in PRS environments.This proposal presents a new calorimeter technology based on thermopiles. Thin film, thermopile calorimeters provide at least an order of magnitude higher output than the single element thermopile designs. Additionally, these self-powered sensors providefast response, can be very accurately calibrated using independent physical measurements, and are relatively inexpensive. The feasibility of a fast thermopile calorimeter with its ancillary data acquisition system will be demonstrated in this Phase Iproject. The thermopile calorimeter will provide a fast, robust, self-powered sensor with a high signal output. It will be designed to be nearly adiabatic during the short measurement time necessary, less than 10 milliseconds. However, the sensor will becompatible with the dynamic error compensation analysis techniques, developed by Ktech, and can be accurately calibrated by independent physical measurements. This calorimeter will provide an improved sensor for a critical NWE experiment requiremen