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Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
C.J. Barth
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 2 | March 2002 | Pages 386-393
Plasma Diagnostics | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A11963539
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The invention of the first laser followed by many others has led to a large amount of different plasma diagnostics using some aspect of the interaction between light and plasmas. In this paper a short review of these diagnostics is given, where the emphasis will be on Thomson scattering and Laser Induced Fluorescence. Thomson scattering is a very powerful diagnostic that is applied at nearly every magnetic confinement device. When the laser wavelength is much smaller than the plasma Debye length, the scattering spectrum is a reflection of the electron velocity distribution, from which local values for the electron temperature and density can be derived. Laser Induced Fluorescence enables to determine the neutral density of different species in the plasma.
