Detection of Highly Enriched Uranium Using a Pulsed D-D Fusion Source

This paper overviews the work that has been done to date towards the development of a compact, reliable means to detect Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and other fissile materials utilizing a pulsed Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) D-D fusion device. To date, the UW IEC device has achieved 115 kV pulses in excess of 2 ampere, with pulsed neutron rates of 1.8 × 10⁹ n/s during a 0.5 ms pulse at 10 Hz. MCNP modeling indicates that detection of samples of U-235 as small as 10 grams is achievable at current neutron production rates, and initial pulsed and steady-state HEU detection experiments have verified these results.