Westonhaus

Last Christmas I went into the hospital with a fluid-filled lung and they found a tumor in the center of my chest. Took them a while to diagnose it as Hodgkin's Lymphoma (which is now almost cured,) but in the meantime I was pretty scared it was something nastier (like, not survive the month nastier... I'm 40.) I ran through the "who I'm going to miss" list but the wacky thing was, I had just seen the teaser trailer for The Hobbit and I was really bummed I might not get to watch it (for the next 3 frickin' years.) Heck, I think I shed a tear for The Avengers and Dark Knight at that point.

So my question, do you find yourself worrying about totally trivial things that really seem important now? I hope everything goes well for you, but I was just wondering if you are as weird as I was. I just wanted to see Gandalf one last time...

So... why aren't you farming out funding of this to the US military, Bettis Labs, Argonne Labs, or other government agency that would like a small, reliable radiation detector? If it works as advertised, and you have the IP for it, I'm positive they would fund the crap out of that (and probably miniaturize it to a more mil-spec size/integrate it into another detection unit a la PIP-Boy or a smart helmet). And they would pay you handsomely. Just sayin'... it looks like it works great. Integrating that into a combat helmet so dangerous radiation could be picked up would be an awesome 21st century battle modification in our coming years.

Cool... I've always wondered if someone could develop a "solar cell" for radiation. Basically have a broad bandgap material with a capture cross-section for gamma rays (rather than photons, as in silicon solar cells). The measured electron output would equate to the material's excitation. I assume this is kinda like the scintillator in this unit? So... my questions:

A. What energy of gammas can this detect? I was in the Navy and used scintillator TLDs for dosimetry, but they didn't really activate until 60Co gamma hit them (~1.1 to 1.3 MeV). Just wondered if this is more sensitive to lower energies (like X-rays)?

B. I assume this doesn't measure other particles? Alphas, betas, and neutrons should still need a gas chamber?

C. What is the highest radiative flux the proposed unit can measure? Cascade effects of Geiger tubes shouldn't be a problem, so I'm thinking the top end of the unit is wherever you top out your amplifier? Which has HUGE implications for high radiation units as well.

If you can't tell me the answers to some of these, I understand. IP and all...