Story about how Los Alamos is reinventing neutron imaging — think “x-rays with neutrons” — using new event-mode cameras that record each neutron interaction with nanosecond-level precision.
Traditional neutron imaging works like a long-exposure photo: useful, but blurry. The new system (based on a camera called LumaCam) timestamps every photon from neutron events and uses techniques like event centroiding and pulse-shape discrimination to clean up noise and sharpen images dramatically.
Why neutrons? Because they reveal things x-rays can’t — like light elements, isotopic composition, and crystal structure. This is especially powerful for materials science and nuclear diagnostics, where understanding what something is made of (not just where it is) really matters.
Traditional neutron imaging works like a long-exposure photo: useful, but blurry. The new system (based on a camera called LumaCam) timestamps every photon from neutron events and uses techniques like event centroiding and pulse-shape discrimination to clean up noise and sharpen images dramatically.
Why neutrons? Because they reveal things x-rays can’t — like light elements, isotopic composition, and crystal structure. This is especially powerful for materials science and nuclear diagnostics, where understanding what something is made of (not just where it is) really matters.