Nuclear Safeguards and Nuclear Forensic Analysis by Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry

A primary tool for detecting undecleared nuclear activities is sample analysis of uranium-bearing aerosol particles collected in cotton swipes. The typical analytical task for a laboratory spezialized in uranium particle analysis can be divided into two steps. The first task is a "needle in the hay stack" problem of locating sub-micron sized uranium particles in a matrix of millions of other particles. Once a particle is found, the second step follows where the isotopic compostition of the particles is measured with high precisiion. For many years SIMS has been used as one of the mainstay techniques for particle analysis on Safeguard samples. The SIMS instrument is uniqe in that it is the only technique that can bothe seach a material to find the particle of interest and to perform the isotopic analysis within one instrument. In recent years there have been several improvements in the use of SIMS for nuclear Safeguards and forensic anlaysis. A major step forward has been the implementation of Large Geometry (LG) - SIMS instruments, and the use of the newly developed Automated Particle Measurements (APM) image software. This paper descrobes the recent developments in image processing used for particle identifications in APM and compares the performance of different image processing algorithms. Keywords: SIMS; LG-SIMS; uranium, particles, nuclear safeguards, nuclear forensic

PERES P.;  HEDBERG Magnus;  RABEMANANJARA F.;  CLIFF J.B.;  LITTMANN S.;  ALBERT Noelle;  VINCENT Marie-Christine; 

2013-05-14

ESARDA

JRC64953

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC64953,