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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
R. Dubey, Gokuldas H., K. Czerski, M. Kaczmarski, A. Kowalska, N. Targosz-Ślęczka, S. Thulichery, M. Valat
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 82 | Number 3 | April 2026 | Pages 572-585
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2025.2520724
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the study of very low-energy fusion reactions, where the cross section drops by many orders of magnitude, measuring the fusion products with minimal uncertainties and free from natural background interference is quite challenging. The present work focuses on qualitative and quantitative assessment of NE113 plastic scintillators, NE213 liquid scintillators, and NaI(Tl) detectors for such studies. All scintillator detectors are calibrated using standard gamma sources , , and and are compared with Geant4 Monte Carlo simulations. A gamma spectrum and neutron unfolding procedure is developed for these detectors with the help of these simulations. To verify this method, an experiment was performed to measure the fusion products from deuteron-deuteron fusion reactions induced by a 10-keV beam on a Zr metallic hydride environment. The results show that the NE113, NE213, and NaI(Tl) scintillator detectors, along with the developed gamma spectrum unfolding procedure, can qualitatively analyze complex gamma spectra with reasonable accuracy.