SBIR Phase I: Development of a High Resolution Room Temperature Cylindrical Ionization Chamber Xenon X-Ray/GammaRadiation Detector

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This Small Business Innovation Research project is for a novel radiation detector which has the potential to provide the commercial sector and government with a simple, low cost, room temperature radiation detector with extremely high energy resolution. The detector requires no cryogenic cooling, is planned to be extremely rugged and provide efficient and accurate identification of x-rays and gamma-rays from 50keV to lOMeV. It will have an intrinsic energy resolution far superior to any scintillation detector currently available and will approach that of cryogenically cooled germanium. The researchers at SenTor have been investigating highly purified xenon gas near the critical point as a room temperature detection medium. Xenon gas in this thermodynamic regime has proven to be ideally suited for room temperature radiation detection. An xenon ionization chamber detector constructed in a cylindrical geometry provides the additional opportunity to perform Compton suppression through pulse shape discrimination. A cylindrical ionization chamber xenon x-ray/gamma-ray detector represents a significant advancement in high resolution, room temperature radiation detection and could be used in such diverse applications as treaty verification, hazardous waste monitoring, deep well logging, x-ray and gamma-ray astrophysics and medical diagnostics.