High-resolution 3D-printed planes, made of a scintillating plastic material, emit light in response to radiation (U.S. Air Force image).

By Juan J. Manfredi Jr.
Air Force Institute of Technology

A recent project sponsored by the Department of Energy (NNSA DNN R&D) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) pursued a 3D-printing approach for creating pixelated plastic scintillator arrays to improve manufacturing time and cost.

Chandler Moore, a doctoral student at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), part of Air University, led the AFIT effort to support this project. Mr. Moore designed, constructed, and programmed a custom 3D printer for making pixelated arrays that can detect and distinguish neutrons and gamma rays, two important types of ionizing radiation.

Ionizing radiation is invisible to the human eye yet must be observed and tracked for national security purposes. Radiation detectors are devices that convert the information from ionizing radiation to more easily processed optical and electrical signals. One such type of detector is the scintillator, which emits light in response to ionizing radiation.

Although scintillators have been used effectively for many decades, traditional manufacturing processes are often slow and limited in being able to produce complicated geometries, such as pixelated scintillator arrays useful for certain imaging applications. The advent of additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing) has opened the possibility to the fast and customizable production of plastic scintillators in arbitrary geometries.

This manufacturing process represents significant improvements on the existing state-of-the-art in terms of cost and labor, and resolution of the final product. During this effort, Mr. Moore also collaborated with ORNL to develop a novel 3D-printable scintillator resin for making high-resolution scintillator geometries (as shown in the figure).

Moore’s work resulted in the authorship of two published peer-reviewed papers. He also spent a summer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory helping with their efforts to develop 3D-printable plastic scintillator materials.

Additionally, Moore’s work on scintillator development successfully met sponsor deliverables, and advances radiation detection capabilities relevant to the Air Force: such as emergency response, treaty monitoring, and atmospheric radiation monitoring. Other AFIT personnel involved in this work include Dr. Juan Manfredi, Dr. Michael Febbraro (who wrote the original proposal), Dr. Daniel Rutstrom, Lt. Col. Ryan Kemnitz, and Lt. Col. AndrewDecker.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official guidance or position of the United States Government, the Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the United States Space Force.

 AFIT’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management (GSEM) provides in-residence and distance learning graduate degrees and certificates in engineering, applied science, mathematics and management. GSEM provides its students with several significant advantages: a more personalized educational experience, academic programs with a defense-related focus, and research on high-priority defense problems.  

AFIT is located at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. AFIT’s mission is to educate defense professionals to innovatively accomplish the deterrence and warfighting missions of the USAF and USSF. AFIT’s vision is to lead defense-focused education, research and consultation to accelerate military superiority across all domains and is accomplished through operationally relevant advanced academic education, research, and professional continuing education. For more information, please visit the AFIT webpage https://www.afit.edu/ or contact GSEM outreach at AFIT.EN.Outreach@us.af.mil.