Opaque Scintillator Technology for Multi-Dimensional Imaging using Anti-Matter in Nuclear Industry (AntiMatter-OTech)

我们建议为核工业提供一种新技术，以打开直接监测核电站堆芯内部核反应的可能性。这项新技术的核心是一种全新的、完全违反直觉的辐射探测方法，这种方法源于中微子物理学研究。到目前为止，直接和快速的现场测量核反应堆裂变活性是不可能的。我们的技术预计将通过使用从核反应堆中流出的大量中微子来实现这一目标。实现这一飞跃依赖于我们方法的范式转变性质。辐射的检测广泛使用了被称为发光材料的发光材料。它们几乎总是透明的，以便可以看到和测量光线。我们全新的方法是使用一种不透明的闪烁体，再加上一个光纤网格来提取光。这种技术自然提供了反物质湮灭加上许多其他类型的辐射（例如β，γ，中子）的高分辨率成像，将反中微子探测的信噪比提高了10倍以上。因此，我们的技术将能够容忍接近反应堆的高本底环境。民用核工业将从安全和社会保障到运营效率等一系列方面受益，并获得直接的经济回报。我们的技术还将能够提供远程监测和任何释放中微子的核过程的信息，从而打开许多潜在的新市场。例子包括乏核燃料容器、燃料池和废物处置场以及核弹头和热核实验堆等聚变反应堆。我们的跨学科联盟汇集了来自机械和电子工程，核和粒子物理，化学和计算的专家，以及我们在民用核能行业的主要工业合作伙伴，使这项激进的新技术成为现实。

We propose to deliver a novel technology for the nuclear industry to open the possibility of direct monitoring of nuclear reactions inside nuclear power plant cores. The new technology centres on a radically-new and totally counter-intuitive approach to radiation detection that has arisen from neutrino physics research. As of today, direct and rapid in-situ measurement of nuclear reactor fission activity is not possible. Our technology is expected to make this possible by using the copious neutrinos that stream out of nuclear reactors. Achieving this leap relies on the paradigm shifting nature of our approach. Detection of radiation makes extensive use of light emitting materials known as scintillators. These are nearly always transparent, to allow the light to be seen and measured. Our radically-new approach is to use an opaque scintillator, coupled with a lattice of optical fibres to extract the light. This technique naturally provides high-resolution imaging of anti-matter annihilation plus many other types of radiation (e.g. betas, gammas, neutrons), improving the signal to noise ratio of anti-neutrino detection by a factor >10x. Consequently, our technology would be able to tolerate the high background environment close to a reactor. The civil nuclear industry will benefit in a range of ways from safety and societal reassurance to operational efficiencies with a direct economic return. Our technology will also be able to provide remote monitoring and information on any nuclear processes that emit neutrinos, opening many potential new markets. Examples include spent nuclear fuel containers, fuel pools and waste disposal sites as well as nuclear warheads and fusion reactors such as ITER. Our inter-disciplinary consortium pulls together experts from mechanical and electronics engineering, nuclear and particle physics, chemistry and computing with our major industrial partner in the civil nuclear energy industry to make this radical new technology a reality.