New Capabilities for Accurate Decay Data: First Results from the NNDC Decay Station

The National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory has recently developed in-house capabilities for α-β-γ spectroscopy. The decay station has been commissioned with measurements of the decay properties of radionuclides of interest for radioimmunotherapy (²²⁵Ac) [1], medical imaging (¹³¹Ba) and tracking nuclear material (¹²⁵Xe) [2].

Radioactive sources are produced in-house using the irradiation facilities available at BNL, such as the Brookhaven Tandem Van de Graaff (BTVG) and the Brookhaven Linear Isotope Produced (BLIP), which allows us to measure short-lived radionuclides.

We have now begun a new campaign to measure the decay of isotopes relevant for nuclear energy applications.

We will present the current capabilities of the NNDC decay station, as well as preliminary results from the measurement of the decay of ¹⁸⁷W. The source was produced at the University of Massachusetts Lowell Research Reactor, and transferred to BNL for assay.

[1] Su, Victoria, et al. "Commissioning the NNDC Decay Station: A high-resolution α-γ coincidence detector for nuclear applications." APS Division of Nuclear Physics Meeting Abstracts. Vol. 2024. 2024.

[2] S. Waniganeththi, et al. “Precise Half-Life Determination of 131Ba and 125Xe”. Manuscript in preparation.