Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Palm-sized radiation detectors for security forces

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 12:06:51 -0400

Palm-sized radiation detectors for security forces
Source: Scripps Howard
Publication date: 2003-04-18

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Los Alamos National Laboratory has a device
that could make border guards looking for terrorists with "dirty bombs" much
more confident.

Federal Homeland Security officials have raised concerns that terrorists
might try to bring in a small homemade bomb designed to spread nuclear
materials — called a dirty bomb — through border security for an attack on
the United States. The Los Alamos device, small enough to be attached to
a Palm Pilot, can detect radiation instantly and, unlike a simple Geiger
counter, tell its operator exactly what the source of the radiation is.

"Right now border officials use large portal monitors that people walk
through," said Bill Murray, the lab scientist who designed the device. "Those
can generally tell if there's radiation, but not what that radiation is. In many
cases, people with cancer or other problems that have used medical
isotopes set those off. With this, the officials can tell right away if it's from
that or something much more serious."

Larger, breadbox-sized devices that can home in on specific types of
nuclear radiation have been around for the past few decades, but they are
often too complex and heavy to be used by someone who isn't highly
trained.

In 1997, Los Alamos started looking for ways to make those devices
smaller and simpler to use for people with little technological experience.
The growing popularity of the Palm Pilot gave Murray the idea of using the
hand-held organizational device as the basis for a field nuclear detector.

"The packaging advantage of the Palm Pilot is it's a lot easier to carry
around in the field," Murray said. "It's not meant to be a laboratory
instrument. It's meant to be taken out to the field to make a specific
measurement, and then with the wireless capabilities of the Palm, if it
detects something, it can instantly e-mail the data back to the lab for an
expert opinion."

Murray's device uses a crystal that's the size of about four sugar cubes
stacked together to see what kind of radiation is being emitted. When
radiation hits the crystal, the crystal releases atoms. The unique signature
of those atoms tells the device what source the radiation came from.

"Initially we wanted to make this so we could monitor our own inventory,"
Murray said. "We started making the devices smaller, and we also started
programming them to be easier to use for technicians in the field. With the
Palm Pilot, we were able to do a little programming and make it very simple
for people to understand exactly what they are looking at."

Los Alamos has ordered 42 of the devices at about $20,000 apiece from
a Pennsylvania electronics company, which is subcontracting the work.
Those devices will go out to Department of Energy nuclear threat response
teams, which go out if border monitors detect a nuclear source.

In the future, DOE plans to make a much larger batch of devices,
hopefully at a cheaper cost of $10,000 each, to be sent out to border
security and other emergency workers such as police and firefighters,
Murray said.

© 2000 Scripps Howard News Service.

All Rights Reserved.

Publication date: 2003-04-18

© 2003, YellowBrix, Inc.

http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Story.nsp?story_id=38175710&ID=cnniw&scategory=Telecommunications%3AWireless&

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