The University of Texas at Arlington
Office of Media Relations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contact: Sue Stevens, (817) 272-3317, sstevens@uta.edu

ARLINGTON—University of Texas at Arlington Assistant Professor of Physics Wei Chen is the principal investigator and Associate Professor Andrew Brandt is the co-principal investigator for a $300,000 three year-grant from the National Science Foundation/Department of Homeland Security Academic Research Initiative. Alan Joly ofPacific Northwestern National Lab is a collaborator.

The investigators will use nano-particles to detect uranium to aid in homeland security. Detectinguranium is a critical concern due its potential for use in nuclear terrorism. Although there have recently been significant improvements in the development of scintillator materials,no current scintillator has the ideal combination ofproperties.

The researchers plan to develop a novel kind of nanostructure phosphor for radiation detection. They will pursue two avenues for scintillation luminescence enhancement: coating scintillation Nan particles withsilver and gold and using periodic surface patterning as in LED enhancement.

The effective combination of the two approaches could yield a multiplicative enhancement factor. This unique approach has noteworthy intellectual merit as improved scintillation devices would have applications in radiation detection and a myriad of other areas.

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