Looking for new possibilities to improve properties of two-energy detectors of scintillator-photodiode type for inspection systems of international security: Multi-energy radiography against terrorism. Theory and experiments

Multi-energy radiography is a new direction in nondestructive testing. Its specific feature is separate detection of penetrating radiation in several energy channels. Multi-energy radiography allows quantitative determination of atomic composition of the objects. This is its principal advantage over conventional radiography. In particular, dual-energy radiography allows determination of the effective atomic number of a material with accuracy up to 80-90%. Development of three-energy radiography and radiography of higher multiplicity makes it possible to reconstruct the exact chemical composition also. This means, for example, detection of explosives and other illegal objects in luggage with reliability close to 100%. Thus, these developments can find application in anti-terrorist activities, in industrial testing and nuclear medicine