Lawrence Livermore Researcher Visits SCSU

Dr. Stephan Friedrich of the Advanced Detector Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory visited the CNRT and science facilities in Hodge Hall on Friday, December 3, 2004, to give a talk, tour labs and discuss possible collaborations with faculty members.

Superconducting Spectrometers for Applications
from Biophysics to National Security

Dr. Stephan Friedrich
Advanced Detector Group, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Superconducting X-ray and Gamma-ray spectrometers operated at temperatures around 0.1 K offer an order of magnitude higher energy resolution that conventional semiconducting Ge and Si(Li) detectors. They enable novel research in areas from biophysics and astronomy to nuclear forensics. The Advanced Detector Group at LLNL has developed superconducting X-ray detectors with an energy resolution of ~10 eV below 1 keV, and Gamma detectors with an energy resolution of ~100 eV below 100 keV. We have also built refrigeration technology to make detector operation at 0.1 K quite user-friendly. We are using the spectrometers to study reaction mechanisms in the active metal sites of proteins by X-ray spectroscopy, and to examine complicated nuclear mixtures by Gamma-spectroscopy. This talk will introduce the basic spectrometer concepts and applications, with an eye on the potential for future collaborations.

 

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