Analytical Techniques for Plutonium in Nuclear Safeguards and Nuclear Security Applications

摘要

Plutonium, as all nuclear materials, is subject to strict national and international control. This involves qualitative and quantitative measurements of plutonium in a variety of matrices. Consequently, analytical techniques suitable for a broad mass and concentration range of more than ten orders of magnitude are required: Methods with highest accuracies are needed for nuclear material accountancy and control where materials typically consist of concentrated samples from nuclear fuel processing. For the detection of undeclared nuclear activities, the focus is rather on techniques with low limits of detection. This paper provides an overview of analytical techniques for plutonium which cover this range of applications.