Nuclear physics

News and Updates

Imaging the Elusive Skyrmion

September 25, 2023

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with colleagues elsewhere have employed neutron imaging and a reconstruction algorithm

New NIST Licensing Opportunity Teems with Potential Applications

July 5, 2023

Max Planck, one of the Twentieth Century’s most eminent physicists, observed, "An experiment is a question that science poses to Nature, and a measurement is

Research on the Rocks: Combining Neutrons and X-Ray Imaging, NIST Scientists Study Meteorites to Explore the Mystery of How Earth Acquired Its Water

November 3, 2022

Each year, hundreds of meteorites — rocky bodies left over from the formation of the solar system — bombard Earth, delivering minerals, metals and water to our

Projects and Programs

Security (Archive): Neutron Detector Replacement Program

Completed

The Department of Homeland Security/Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DHS/DNDO) is pursuing a course to transform 3He alternative technologies into integrated

Fundamental Physics: Experiments with a Precision Neutron Polarimeter

Ongoing

The Neutron Spin Rotation (NSR) collaboration has developed a neutron spin polarimeter that has allowed the precise measurement of spin rotations at a level of

Fundamental Physics: Precision Measurement of the Branching Ratio and Energy Spectrum of Radiative Neutron Decay

Completed

Neutron beta-decay is typically considered as a three-body process, but it is always accompanied by inner-bremsstrahlung soft photons, n → e − + p + ν e + γ

Applied: Methods in Neutron Detection and Spectroscopy

Ongoing

We continue to work improving techniques in fast neutron detection using segmented spectrometers based on the principle of capture-gating. Our approach employs

Publications

Final Search for Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillations with the PROSPECT-I Detector at HFIR

June 14, 2024

Author(s)

Hans Pieter Mumm, Manoa Andriamirado, Baha Balantekin, Christopher Bass, Ohana Benevides Rodrigues, Ethan Bernard, Nathaniel Bowden, Christopher Bryan, Rachel Carr, Timothy Classen, Andrew Conant, Geoffrey Deichert, Michelle Dolinski, Anna Erickson, Alfredo Galindo-Uribarri, Sasmit Gokhale, Chris Grant, Sunej Hans, Adam Hansell, Karsten Heeger, Blaine Heffron, David Jaffe, Shashank Jayakumar, John Koblanski, Paige Kunkle, Charles Lane, Bryce Littlejohn, Adrian Lozano Sanchez, Xiaobin (Jeremy) Lu, Jelena Maricic, Michael Mendenhall, Andrew Meyer, Radovan Milincic, Paul Mueller, Russell Neilson, Xin Qian, Christian Roca, Richard Rosero, Pranava Teja Surukuchi, Felicia Sutanto, Diego Venegas-Vargas, Pierce Weatherly, James Wilhelmi, Minfang Yeh, Chao Zhang, Xianyi Zhang

The PROSPECT experiment is designed to perform precise searches for antineutrino disappearance at short distances (7 – 9 m) from compact nuclear reactor cores

Activity standard and calibrations for 227Th with ingrowing progeny

April 20, 2024

Author(s)

Denis E. Bergeron, Jeffrey T. Cessna, Brittany Broder, Leticia Pibida, Ryan P. Fitzgerald, Morgan DiGiorgio, Elisa Napoli, Brian E. Zimmerman

Thorium-227 was separated from its progeny and standardized for activity by the triple-to-double coincidence ratio (TDCR) method of liquid scintillation

A New Evaluation of the Decay Data for 166Ho

February 23, 2024

Author(s)

Brian E. Zimmerman

The beta emitting radionuclide 166Ho has garnered attention over the years as a potential radiolabel for therapeutic medical applications. A new decay data

Ambient humidity, the overlooked influencer of radioactivity measurements

November 27, 2023

Author(s)

Stefaan Pomme, Michael P. Unterweger, Ryan P. Fitzgerald, Denis E. Bergeron, Leticia Pibida, International Collaboration

When verifying the validity of the exponential-decay law through 128 precise decay rate measurement series at various nuclear laboratories, minor violations

Tools and Instruments

Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectrometer

Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy uses positrons to probe material defects/voids/free volume at the sub-nm scale. The general working principle is

Material Analysis Using Neutron Depth Profiling

Light elements such as helium, lithium, boron, and nitrogen are essential constituents in materials that enable energy technologies; lithium ion batteries