A γ-ray integrated prototype system for the measurement of plutonium component attributes

Abstract

A γ-ray integrated measurement prototype system named HAM-1 has been built up by integrating the technologies of γ-ray detection，spectral analysis and information barrier，which can be used for potential nuclear disarmament verification of plutonium components through the measurement of attributes such as the presence of plutonium，the weapon-grade plutonium and its age. A basic starting point for the development of HAM-1 was to prevent any possible leakage of sensitive weapon design information in the process of measurement. Two embedded ARM controllers were selected as the CPUs of HAM-1 according to the design requirements of information barriers. A code dedicated to HAM-1 has been developed for analyzing the high-resolution γ-ray spectra to accurately determine the attributes. The all-round process of HAM-1 from the spectra sampling to data processing and result display was automatic, during which the sensitive weapon design information was protected from leakage.