CdZnTe (CZT) nuclear radiation detectors are advanced sensors that utilize innovative technologies developed for wide band-gap semiconductor industry and microelectronics. They open opportunities for new types of room-temperature operating, field deployable instruments that provide accurate identification of potential radiological threats and timely awareness for both the civilian and military communities. Room-temperature radiation detectors are an emerging technology that relies on the use of high-quality CZT crystals whose availability is currently limited by material non-uniformities and the presence of extended defects. To address these issues, which are most critical to CZT sensor developments, we developed X-ray mapping and IR transmission microscopy systems to characterize both CZT crystals and devices. Since a customized system is required for such X-ray measurements, we use synchrotron radiation beams available at BNL's National Synchrotron Light Source. A highly-collimated and high-intensity X-ray beam supports measurements of areas as small as 10 x 10 {micro}m{sup 2}, and allowed us to see fluctuations in collected charge over the entire area of the detector in a reasonable time. The IR microscopy system allows for 3D visualization of Te inclusions and other extended defects. In this paper, we describe the experimental techniques used in our measurements and typical results obtained from …

Waste cleanup efforts underway at the United States Department of Energy's (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, as well as other DOE nuclear sites, have created a need to characterize {sup 79}Se in radioactive waste inventories. Successful analysis of {sup 79}Se in high activity waste matrices is challenging for a variety of reasons. As a result of these unique challenges, the successful quantification of {sup 79}Se in the types of matrices present at SRS requires an extremely efficient and selective separation of {sup 79}Se from high levels of interfering radionuclides. A robust {sup 79}Se radiochemical separation method has been developed at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) which is routinely capable of successfully purifying {sup 79}Se from a wide range of interfering radioactive species. In addition to a dramatic improvements in the Kd, ease, and reproducibility of the analysis, the laboratory time has been reduced from several days to only 6 hours.

A systematic study on the adsorption of xenon on silver clusters in the gas phase and on the (001) surface of silver-exchanged chabazite is reported. Density functional theory at the B3LYP level with the cluster model was employed. The results indicate that the dominant part of the binding is the {sigma} donation, which is the charge transfer from the 5p orbital of Xe to the 5s orbital of Ag and is not the previously suggested d{sub {pi}}-d{sub {pi}} back-donation. A correlation between the binding energy and the degree of {sigma} donation is found. Xenon was found to bind strongly to silver cluster cations and not to neutral ones. The binding strength decreases as the cluster size increases for both cases, clusters in the gas-phase and on the chabazite surface. The Ag{sup +} cation is the strongest binding site for xenon both in gas phase and on the chabazite surface with the binding energies of 73.9 and 14.5 kJ/mol, respectively. The results also suggest that the smaller silver clusters contribute to the negative chemical shifts observed in the {sup 129}Xe NMR spectra in experiments.

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