A New Method for In-situ Characterization of Important Actinides and Technetium Compounds via Fiberoptic Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)

This project serves to fill information gap through the development of a novel surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy to selectively and sensitively monitor and characterize the chemical speciation of radionuclides at trace levels. The SERS technique permits both of these measurements to be made simultaneously, and results in significant improvement over current methods in reducing time of analysis, cost, and sample manipulation. Our overall goal is (a) to develop a scientific basis for this new methodology to detect radionuclides via SERS and (b) to rationally synthesize and evaluate novel sol-gel based SERS substrates tailored to sensitively detect and characterize inorganic radionuclides such as TcO4 -, actinyl ions (e.g. UO2 2+, NpO2 +, and PuO2 2+) and other chemical compounds of interest