GAMMA RADIOGRAPHY

FOR
SECURITY

Name: Aniket Sujay(17122006)

Aman Kumar(17122005)
Contents:
• Introduction.
• Techniques for SNM detection.
• Multiple Monoenergetic Gamma
Radiography(MMGR).
• Monoenergetic Gamma Ray Production.
• Gamma Interaction Physics.
• MMGR setup.
• Gamma spectra analysis.
• Effects of Z and areal density on gamma
spectrum
 NUCLEAR SECURITY
An increasing focus of the field is to mitigate the threat of nuclear
terrorism , particularly the smuggling of special nuclear materials (SNM)
or assembled nuclear devices in the commercial cargos .

Techniques used for detection:

1. Passive Interrogation .
2. Active Interrogation .
3. Transmission Radiography .
Passive Interrogation Technique :
It directly detect the natural radioactive signatures of fissionable and
radioactive materials to determine the presence of nuclear materials in
the cargos.

Advantages: simplicity , low cost , mobility .

Disadvantages:
Most fissionable materials have low , difficult to detect rates of natural
radioactive particle emission. So it will be difficult to detect the
presence of nuclear substances.
Active Interrogation Technique:
Active interrogation technique uses neutrons or high-energy photons to
induce nuclear reactions in the object which is under inspection.
Secondry radition coming after it is then used to detect the presence of
the nuclear material in the container.

Advantage: Acccurate .

Disadvantage: Have long screening time.

Transmission Radiography :
Transmission Radiography is the process of measuring and recording
changes in a high-energy particle beam resulting from passage through
an object .

Our aim is to measure the areal density and the atomic number of the
object which is under observation.

Things to keep in mind while applying it on container cargoes...

1. Low Dose.
2. Short screening times.
3. Low cost.
4. Satisfying Accuracy.
Traditional Transmission Radiography:
Traditional radiographic systems primarily use electron linear accelerators
(linacs) to produce ~1 to 10 MeV Bremsstrahlung photon beams.

The aim is to measure the integrated energy of a transmitted photon

beam to produce an approximate reconstructed map of the areal density
of the cargo.
Problems faced:
1. Produced photon beams are too intense.The sensors can operate only
in integration mode ,yielding no spectral information and limiting the ability
to infer the cargo's atomic number.
2. As the cargo thickness is increased , photon scattering significantly
reduces radiographic image contrast for a fixed photon dose to the cargo.
Recovering the image quality for them requires additional dose.
3.A large fraction of the bremsstrahlung photons are below ~3 MeV ,
which provide substantial dose to the cargo without contributing
information on the cargo composition.
Multiple Monoenergetic Gamma Radiography

Due to the shotcomings of the traditional

passive interrogation methods and
transmission radiography, scientists at
MIT started conducting experiments
using MMGR(Multiple Monoergetic
Gamma RadioGraphy) technique.

This method utilises the interaction

physics of gamma ray with matter.
Monoenergetic Gamma Ray Production

• First step in the MMGR method is the gamma ray

production.
• Some special compund nuclear reactions are used to
produce the emission.
• These reactions are used because they generally occur
with almost all the isotopes of the elements used which
results in the large variety of energies.
• They generally produce monoenergetic gamma ray.
• The reaction cross section is generally very large.
 d

• One example of such

reaction is :
B
• 11-B(d, n ỿ)12-C
• Q - value = 13.73 MeV
• The high q-value enables 4.44 Mev
deutron to excite the
nucleus upto energies 15.11 MeV
15.11 MeV. n
C*
• This results in the gamma
flux of the energies 4.44
C
MeV and 15.11 MeV.
Exploiting Gamma Interaction Physics

• Depending on the Zeff of the

material, the primary interaction of
the material for gamma ray 1-5
MeV is Compton Scattering.
• And for rays with energy greater
than 5 MeV is pair production.
• Suitable nuclear reactions are
those which produce one photon
for Compton scattering and one
photon for pair production.
• This allows the difference in Z -
dependence between Compton
Scattering and pair production
cross-section to be exploited to
asses the areal density and Zeff.
• Attentuation of the beam through a homogenous material
is given by

• where μ is the mass attentuation coefficient.

• A radiographic measurement would quantify left side of
the equation which assuming a fixed value of μ would
enable reconstruction of the areal density X.
• The mass attentuation coefficient however accounts for
all possible interactions and thus have a significant
dependence on Z, A and gamma ray energy.
• In the energy range that we are dealing with compton
scattering and pair production are the most dominant so μ
can be written as
• The mass attentuation coefficients can be approximated
as

• In contrast to compton scattering the pair production cross

section has linear dependence to Z.

• In above mentioned reaction 2 different types of gamma

rays were produced.
• First one with energy 4.44 MeV and second one with
energy 15.11 MeV.
• For energy near 4.44 MeV the coefficient is nearly constant thus can
be used to calculate approximate areal density.
• For energies near 15 MeV attentuation coefficients have strong
dependence with Z and thus can be used to calculate Zeff.
Schematic of the MMGR experiment
Gamma spectra analysis:
Effects of Z and areal density on
gamma spectrum:
THE END