Radiation and Matter

Radiation–matter interactions underpin disciplines from medical imaging to space technology and nuclear safeguards. Ionising radiation encompasses photons and particles whose energy suffices to excite or remove electrons, leading to energy deposition, chemical change and, in some materials, self-healing processes. Photons interact via photoelectric absorption at low energies, Compton scattering at intermediate energies and pair production above the 1 MeV threshold. Charged particles—electrons, protons and heavy ions—lose energy through collisional excitation and ionisation, with lighter projectiles also emitting bremsstrahlung radiation when decelerated by atomic nuclei. Neutral particles such as neutrons scatter elastically or inelastically and may be captured by nuclei, triggering secondary radiation. Quantitative characterisation of these processes relies on concepts such as stopping power, linear energy transfer and spectral response. Applications exploit these phenomena for nondestructive assay of nuclear fuel, precision dosimetry in radiotherapy and the development of radiation-hard materials for harsh environments.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Studies on hybrid perovskite solar cells have revealed an unusual synergy between radiation-induced damage and subsequent self-annealing. By administering sequential proton doses with differing non-ionising and ionising energy-loss components, researchers have disentangled defect creation from ionisation-driven healing, demonstrating that high-energy protons can partially restore open-circuit voltage and fill factor by mobilising and recombining displaced ions in the soft lattice. This dual-dose approach establishes a new paradigm for leveraging electronic ionisation to mitigate radiation effects in soft-matter photovoltaics.

Advances in passive gamma emission tomography for spent nuclear fuel have addressed both instrument flexibility and computational bottlenecks. Comparative trials with cobalt-60 mock-ups in air and water confirm that highly collimated cadmium-zinc-telluride detectors maintain rod-level sensitivity outside pool environments. In parallel, a physics-aware reduced-order modelling framework compresses Monte Carlo simulations into real-time forward models, enabling full-angle synthetic sinograms at a fraction of the cost while preserving image fidelity for rapid prototyping and validation.

Radiation and Matter publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in radiation and matter across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Non-ionising energy loss: Energy transferred by radiation sufficient to displace atoms but not to ionise them, critical in quantifying displacement damage.

Passive Gamma Emission Tomography (PGET): A nondestructive assay technique that images gamma-ray emission around nuclear fuel assemblies to detect missing or substituted pins.

Stopping power: The rate of energy loss per unit path length of a charged particle traversing matter, comprising collisional and radiative components.

Pile-up: Overlapping detector pulses at high count rates that distort spectroscopic measurements if not corrected or rejected.

Reduced-order modelling: A computational strategy that combines limited-view sampling with an inexpensive forward proxy to reconstruct full datasets with high fidelity at reduced cost.

References

1. Unraveling radiation damage and healing mechanisms in halide perovskites using energy-tuned dual irradiation dosing. Nature Communications (2024).
2. In-air and in-water performance comparison of Passive Gamma Emission Tomography with activated Co-60 rods. Scientific Reports (2023).
3. Vanquishing the computational cost of passive gamma emission tomography simulations leveraging physics-aware reduced order modeling. Scientific Reports (2023).
4. An Ultra-Throughput Boost Method for Gamma-Ray Spectrometers. Energies (2024).
5. Degenerate Pile-up Correction in Pulse Height Spectra from Gamma-ray Spectrometers. Journal of Fusion Energy (2024).