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Lasers can help detect radioactive materials from afar

In a record-breaking test, researchers remotely detected radioactive material by shooting it with infrared laser pulses and analysing how the light scattered

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

6 March 2025

There is a new application for lasers

laboratory/Alamy

Lasers could become an important tool for detecting radioactive materials, such as those in covert nuclear weapons, from a greater distance than ever before.

Conventional radioactivity sensing techniques involve waiting for particles produced during radioactive decay to hit a detector. The method can sense these particles from tens of metres away – but not much further. at the University of Maryland and his colleagues have now shown that a laser-based method could be effective from as far…

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