Programme: Programa  Cooperación en Investigación Científica y Desarrollo en Tecnologías Estratégicas (COINCIDENTE)

Objective: The NUCLEODET-CZTS project will develop a portable device to detect nuclear radiation with Spanish technology. The aim is to design and build portable devices for the early detection of nuclear weapons, based on semiconductors and operating at room temperature.

NUCLEODET-CZTS will use semiconductors (cadmium zinc telluride and cadmium zinc telluride selenide, CdZnTe and CdZnTeSe) to manufacture a manual spectrometer that detects nuclear radiation using a portable system that operates at room temperature and with purely Spanish technology. This equipment could detect and analyze radiation from radioactive material and thus have early knowledge of whether improper work is being done in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, or analyze an area contaminated with radiation and identify what radioactive material it is. The interest in Security comes from the need to detect home-made devices that emit little radiation. Furthermore, as the device operates at room temperature, it allows it to be transported compared to other technologies that require very low temperatures.

Consortium: Autonomous University of Madrid, Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research (CIEMAT), Idonial Foundation and Metrohm-Dropsens.