Patent ID: 8193504

Claim:
A method for the remote detection and characterization of materials at a sample material emplacement with ionizing radiation, that requires thermally-induced Doppler broadening of nuclear reaction cross sections, comprising the steps of: (a) generating a unidirectional interrogation beam composed of ionizing radiation at a platform used as a stage for a detection and characterization operation; (b) directing an interrogation beam composed of ionizing radiation to irradiate a remote sample material emplacement or a portion thereof; (c) generating a secondary ionizing photon radiation by spontaneous, particle capture, inelastic particle scattering, and particle activation reactions of the interrogation beam with the material at the emplacement location; (d) detecting secondary photon radiations emitted from the sample material emplacement in interaction events in detector materials disposed at a remote location adjacent to the location where the interrogation beam originates; (e) converting interaction events by secondary photons, including those emitted from the sample material emplacement location, with the detector materials to detector response electronic signals; (f) processing the detector response electronic signals remotely to generate spectral information by cataloging the actuarial detection frequency or cumulative event count in specific incident photon energy intervals; (g) changing the temperature of the sample material emplacement remotely in a controlled fashion to induce Doppler broadening of nuclear reaction cross sections by use of an apparatus disposed for the purpose of creating said temperature change; (h) and, assessing remotely the changes produced by sample material emplacement temperature perturbations to the spectral information generated from the detector response electronic signals to calculate or infer the mass inventory and composition of material at the sample emplacement.