ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2026
Nuclear Technology
July 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Launching into tomorrow: NRIC guides new era of research and deployment
In June 2025, the Department of Energy announced the Reactor Pilot Program, an authorization pathway that allowed reactor developers to partner with the DOE to get first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors built and tested. Soon after, the DOE rolled out a complementary Fuel Line Pilot Program, which aimed to fast-track fuel projects. In all, 20 projects were accepted into the new programs.
Al-Amin Ahmed Simon, Karishmae Kadrager, Baharceh Badamchi, Harish Subbaraman, Maria Mitkova (Boise State Univ)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 39-48
Temperature sensing is an integral part of any nuclear reactor facilities. However, high radiation and temperature degrade the sensing materials which in turn makes the sensors less reliable. In this paper, chalcogenide glasses are proposed as temperature sensing materials for reactor facilities. Chalcogenide glasses go through amorphous to crystalline phase transformation when heated up to their crystallization temperature. This phase transition changes both the electrical and optical properties of the chalcogenide glasses. They are amorphous in nature and radiation hard due to their specific electronic structure and high defect density. Difference in reflected power at 1310 nm and 1550 nm wavelengths as a function of temperature, from chalcogenide glass-silica interface can be utilized to measure temperature and this effect is applied in the device presented in this paper. A review of the radiation hardness and a study of thermally induced change in optical properties of Ge-containing chalcogenide glasses along with a device architecture are presented as a method for temperature monitoring in nuclear facilities.