Anna Vesterlund, researcher at FOI (Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut), recently defended her doctoral thesis on “Method Development for Signatures in Nuclear Material for Nuclear Forensic Purposes” at Chalmers.
Nuclear forensics is a scientific discipline where signatures in nuclear and other radioactive material are investigated and evaluated in order to aid in criminal investigations concerning these materials. Examples of signatures that may be useful are the age and isotopic composition of the nuclear material and trace elements in the material. In order for evidence to hold up in court, the information extracted from forensic investigations need to be accurate and precise.
Anna’s work shows some possibilities and limitations of using two common techniques for measurements of nuclear material and other radioactive material: gamma spectrometry for acquiring signatures in nuclear material and inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry for lanthanide measurements in uranium rich material that can be used to track the geological origin of uranium.
Two quick questions for Anna:
What made you interested in nuclear forensics? Measurements performed in a nuclear forensic context have high requirements for confidence and scrutiny. This increased level of difficulty in performing such measurements were intriguing to me.
What areas of application do you foresee for your discovery? Besides the increased capability to perform nuclear forensic investigations in Sweden I believe that my work on data evaluation may be useful, not only to radioanalytical chemists but to many analytical chemists in general.
Download Anna Vesterlund’s Doctoral Thesis here: Thesis Anna Vesterlund.
