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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Praneeth Kandlakunta, Matthew Van Zile, Lei Raymond Cao
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 11 | November 2022 | Pages 1383-1396
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2091905
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The feasibility of using solar cells for post-detonation monitoring, and more broadly, gamma-ray monitoring, is evaluated using Monte Carlo simulations and experiments in this work. We measured the short-circuit current Isc response of commercial silicon (Si) solar cells to 137Cs and 60Co gamma rays. A clear response of both mono- and polycrystalline Si solar cells to 137Cs and 60Co gamma rays was obtained in good agreement with the simulations. Radiation effects in solar cells due to accumulated gamma-ray dose were noticed as the drop in Isc and open-circuit voltage Voc. The atomic displacement cross section of the produced secondary fast electrons and nonionizing energy loss (NIEL) concepts were revisited to understand the principal gamma-radiation damage mechanism in solar cell devices. Analytical computations of and NIEL of electrons convoluted with simulated Compton electron distributions in Si enabled a fundamental understanding of the gamma-radiation effects and recovery mechanism in solar cells, further supporting the experimental results. Different from the ionization effects in the polymer and glass layers of a solar cell/panel, displacement damage in the Si p-n layer from gamma rays or fast electrons is much less than that from massive particles, which directly affects the charge collection performance fundamental to solar cell operation.