Method and apparatus for material identification using characteristic radiative emissions
AssigneeThe Trustees of Columbia University
InventorCharles Hailey
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for low-background detection of simultaneously-emitted characteristic radiative emissions is presented. In some aspects, the characteristic radiative emissions, e.g. X-rays, are produced by deexcitation of exotic (excited) atoms in a sample to be identified. The characteristic X-rays can be used to identify the sample according to its unique identifying energy spectrum. In other aspects, a nuclear characteristic radiative emission is detected and used for the identification.
Claims44
A device for detecting correlated radiative emissions from a sample, comprising:
- a chamber that substantially contains the sample, the chamber being permeable to an incident subatomic particle entering the chamber and interacting with the sample, thereby causing the sample to emit a first emitted radiative emission and a second emitted radiative emission;
- and
- a detector that detects a first interaction with the first emitted radiative emission and detects a second interaction with the second emitted radiative emission.
A method for determining a correlation between two emitted radiative emissions and a detector, comprising:
- (A) detecting a first radiative emission from deexcitation of an exotic atom;
- (B) detecting a second radiative emission from deexcitation of the exotic atom;
- and
- (C) correlating the first and second radiative emissions detected in (A) and (B) to determine a correlation between the first and second radiative emissions.
A device for screening objects, comprising:
- a chamber that substantially contains an object to be screened;
- and
- an X-ray detector that detects at least one characteristic X-ray emitted by an excited (exotic) atom within the object;
- wherein the exotic atom emits the characteristic X-ray on transitioning from a first (high-energy) atomic state to a second (low-energy) atomic state.
An apparatus for correlating radiative emissions from an exotic atom, comprising:
- means for detecting a first radiative emission from deexciting the exotic atom;
- means for detecting a second radiative emission from deexciting the exotic atom;
- and
- means for correlating the first and second radiative emissions to yield a correlation between the first and second radiative emissions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.