In the current climate of increased global terrorism, the threat of a radiological incident is becoming more realistic than ever, and as such, the necessity of early-warning detection is paramount to national security. To assist with this need, we have investigated the detection of uncharged particle emissions from radiological sources using charged-coupled devices (CCDs), which are contained within a variety of products, including consumer cellphones and traffic cameras. Because the CCD is intrinsically sensitive to charge accumulation as a result of linear energy transfer by the incident particles, each event can be counted and quantified using video-image processing and an estimated energy band assessed by the properties of the pixels. In an effort to make this process applicable to the widest possible range of CCDs available, this experiment was conducted using low-quality CCDs contained within consumer-grade, budget web cameras. Within a Pu-Be neutron howitzer, particles were detected using several camera models: Gigaware X76, Z76 and Logitech C170, C270. Particle detection events were counted by post-processing with Matlab, and an efficiency for each CCD was determined relative to both a theoretical flux model and a calibrated He tube detector. The relative detection efficiencies for the cameras tested fell within the range 14-18% and showed a linear correlation between incident energy and pixel response.

中文翻译：

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使用消费级 CCD 检测和分析不带电粒子。

在当前全球恐怖主义日益猖獗的情况下，放射性事件的威胁比以往任何时候都更加现实，因此，早期预警检测的必要性对国家安全至关重要。为了满足这一需求，我们研究了使用电荷耦合器件 (CCD) 检测放射源的不带电粒子排放，这些器件包含在各种产品中，包括消费类手机和交通摄像头。由于 CCD 由于入射粒子的线性能量转移而对电荷积累本质上是敏感的，因此可以使用视频图像处理和通过像素属性评估的估计能带对每个事件进行计数和量化。为了使这一过程适用于尽可能广泛的可用 CCD，该实验是使用包含在消费级预算网络摄像机中的低质量 CCD 进行的。在 Pu-Be 中子榴弹炮内，使用几种相机型号检测粒子：Gigaware X76、Z76 和罗技 C170、C270。通过使用 Matlab 进行后处理来计算粒子检测事件，并根据理论通量模型和校准的 He 管检测器确定每个 CCD 的效率。测试的相机的相对检测效率在 14-18% 范围内，并显示出入射能量和像素响应之间的线性相关性。通过使用 Matlab 进行后处理来计算粒子检测事件，并根据理论通量模型和校准的 He 管检测器确定每个 CCD 的效率。测试的相机的相对检测效率在 14-18% 范围内，并显示出入射能量和像素响应之间的线性相关性。通过使用 Matlab 进行后处理来计算粒子检测事件，并根据理论通量模型和校准的 He 管检测器确定每个 CCD 的效率。测试的相机的相对检测效率在 14-18% 范围内，并显示出入射能量和像素响应之间的线性相关性。