A project funded by the Department of Energy‘s NNSA DNN R&D program and based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has turned to additive manufacturing to produce pixelated plastic scintillator arrays, seeking to cut both the time and expense of fabricating these radiation-sensing components.
The contribution from the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), part of Air University, was headed by doctoral student Chandler Moore, who designed, built and programmed a purpose-made 3D printer capable of producing pixelated arrays that detect neutrons and gamma rays, and tell the two apart. Both are forms of ionizing radiation with high national security relevance.
Why Scintillators, and Why Print Them
Ionizing radiation cannot be seen, yet monitoring it is essential for security applications. Detectors bridge that gap by translating radiation into optical and electrical signals that instruments can process. Scintillators, one class of such detectors, respond to ionizing radiation by emitting light.
While scintillators have served the field reliably for decades, conventional fabrication methods tend to be slow and struggle with complex shapes, including the pixelated arrays valuable for certain imaging tasks. 3D printing removes much of that constraint, enabling rapid, customizable production of plastic scintillators in virtually any geometry. Compared with the previous state of the art, the printing-based process delivers meaningful gains in cost, labor and the resolution of the finished component.
A New Printable Resin and National Lab Collaborations
As part of the effort, Moore worked with ORNL to formulate a novel 3D printable scintillator resin suited to high-resolution geometries. His research has yielded two peer-reviewed publications, and he spent a summer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory contributing to that lab’s own development of 3D printable plastic scintillator materials.
The work fulfilled the sponsor’s deliverables and strengthens radiation detection capabilities of direct interest to the Air Force, including emergency response, treaty monitoring and atmospheric radiation monitoring.
Alongside Moore, the AFIT contributors included Dr. Juan Manfredi, Dr. Michael Febbraro, author of the original proposal, Dr. Daniel Rutstrom, Lt. Col. Ryan Kemnitz and Lt. Col. Andrew Decker.
Filling the Manufacturing Gap in Nuclear Detection
The project targets three gaps at once: detection capability, cost and geometry. By pairing a custom-built printer with a printable scintillating resin, the AFIT-ORNL team can produce high-resolution detector arrays faster, cheaper and in geometries that traditional methods can’t reach.
The effort joins a growing line of 3D printed radiation detection work. Researchers at Hanyang University in Seoul used DLP printing to produce plastic scintillators for gamma detection that matched the decay time and intrinsic detection efficiency of the commercial scintillator BC408, a milestone, given that earlier printed scintillators typically reached only about 70% of commercial performance, even as the technology’s design freedom, speed and low cost kept drawing researchers in.
Others have lowered the cost of detection hardware itself. Conrad Farnsworth designed and built a working Geiger counter from mostly 3D printed parts in about 24 hours, combining six printed components with off-the-shelf electronics and publishing the files freely on Thingiverse, a handheld ionizing-radiation detector at a fraction of commercial cost.
From lab-grade gamma scintillators to printable handheld counters, additive manufacturing is cutting the cost of watching for radiation at every level. The AFIT-ORNL project brings that shift to national security detection. Its printer and resin turn detector geometry from a constraint into a design choice.
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Featured image shows High-resolution 3D printed planes, made of a scintillating plastic material, emit light in response to radiation. Image U.S. Air Force.
