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That Gamma Ray Detector in my Pocket January 18, 2014

Idaho National laboratories scientists (in Idaho Falls, ‘natch) have transformed ordinary cell phone cameras into gamma-ray detectors, with only the addition of black tape to keep out visible light.  The resulting calculations include the radiation dose and the eV rating (“the energy spectrum”) of the incident particle/ray.

The theory is, the CMOS detectors in your phone should be able to react to incident gamma rays because they have gigantic energies compared to photons in the visible spectrum 20,000eV, vs. like, 3 eV. No contest, right?  That is where the magic comes in.  When the incident ray strikes the CMOS detector, the extra 10,000 or so volts turns into a bunch of electrons running around the CMOS array, possibly leaving an interesting trail for clever software algorithms to interpret in terms of eV input and direction of incidence.  Of course the CMOS is flat and so the best information comes from gamma rays that strike close to the plane of the CMOS detector (too bad; the universe is full of gamma rays that we need to study if we are ever to figure out the cosmos…but I’ll get to that).

You can probably see where I’m going with this, right?  What if all cell phones had these detectors and phoned a central repository when they got a strike with information about the location of the phone, its orientation in space, the time of the incident and the eV of the strike?  Millions (soon to be billions) of people have these phones RIGHT NOW. This can make the Earth a 24,000 mile-wide gamma ray detector array with billions of detectors, RIGHT NOW.  With the kind of smart detection algorithms and big data-crunching hardware available, lots of physics mysteries will begin to clear themselves up.

Sadly, I can’t find if these guys (Joshua Cogliati and company at Idaho National labs1) have made their application available, though some of the code is already published.  I will keep you posted, however, if I find anything interesting.

So, my cell phone is now a gamma ray detector as well as a heart monitor and

general signaling device.  I can’t help but think I have seen this somewhere before.

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1.  Using CMOS Sensors in a Cellphone for Gamma Detection and Classification, Joshua J. Cogliati, Kurt W. Derr, Jayson Wharton  http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.0766

Science Marches on (Me) January 16, 2014

When I was a lad of thirty (so very long ago now), I had a DIONEX ion chromatograph on my lab bench that occupied the whole damn thing (Windows 1.0 was new then), about ten feet by three feet by four feet.  It separated ions and certain organic molecules and let me count how much of what was in a properly prepared sample.  Pretty much cutting edge at the time, as I recall.

The same capabilities seem to be embodied in a 1.5 kg box smaller than my lunch pail, and with better sensitivity:

“Engineers from the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering and colleagues at the University of Basel, Switzerland, have designed and developed a compact, portable analytical instrument that can detect multiple ions and molecules down to a level of 300 parts per billion (ppb) in less than a minute. The machine, based on lab-on-a-chip technology, needs only drop-sized liquid samples. The analysis is very quick, precise and sensitive, and can be performed remotely as no direct contact with the solution is necessary. As such, the device has widespread potential applications in the water, food and beverage, agriculture, environmental, pharmaceutical and medical industries.” The abstract can be found here.  No mention of who actually sells one but at least this is one of the few lab-on-a-chip designs with real published data I have seen.

We’re getting there.