Belkis Cabrera-Palmer has been a member of the Radiation and Nuclear Detector Systems department at Sandia California for over 6 years. For most of that time, she has worked on antineutrino detection for nuclear reactor monitoring, serving as a PI in two projects seeking to demonstrate the applicability of High-Purity Germanium detector systems for (anti)neutrino detection. She has also been involved in the development and deployment of other antineutrino and neutron detectors based on scintillation materials. Belkis received her Ph.D. in 2005 from Syracuse University in Theoretical Physics, and started working on radiation detection in 2006 at a start-up company developing high-pressure xenon spectrometers.
Possible Projects:
- Time-Encoded Imaging (TEI) using High-Purity Ge detector: Based on previous SNL work on single-channel TEI for directional neutron detection, we want to investigate a possible directional gamma-ray spectrometer consisting of a High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector concentric with a circular time-modulated collimator. The presence of a collimation mask, however, reduces the recorded source rate compared to a bare detector, which could in principle impose a trade-off between signal sensitivity and directional information. A feasibility study, consisting of concept development and simulation work, will investigate: (1) sensitivity in low Signal-to-Background (S:B) scenarios, given by some combination of weak source, large standoff distance, heavy shielding, or short exposure time, (2) unambiguous isotope identification within a broad energy range, including SNM, products of neutron activation and other possible radioactive sources, and (3) design modifications to improve S:B ratio and efficiency while maintaining simplicity of construction and use of commercially available HPGe systems.