The camera is essentially an Anger design, which is used in medical imaging and employs a honeycomb lead collimator followed by a sodium iodide scintillator. According to Morgan, the design has excellent energy conversion efficiency and offers the capability of differentiating between high-atomic number materials. Neutron sources expand industrial utility Western Kentucky Univ. Western Kentucky's Phillip Womble and his associates use pulsed fast-thermal neutron analysis to evaluate different elements such as carbon, oxygen, chlorine, sulfur, calcium, sodium, and silicon, among others. In drug enforcement, a small deuterium-tritium neutron generator with extension probe can be placed in liquids, such as those in tanker trucks, railcars, or any other container.
Detection occurs in several phases.
The first phase keys on the fast-reaction gamma rays emitted from carbon and oxygen. Gamma rays with energies of 4.43 MeV for carbon and 6.13 MeV for oxygen measure the content of these two elements, and therefore their ratio. The second phase occurs during neutron emission as the radiation moderates to thermal energies. Again, gamma ray emission measures amounts of chlorine, sulfur, and calcium. In a separate setup that samples the coal, neutron activation spectra measure the amounts of sodium, silicon, and oxygen.