Nuclear Forensics Science as Border Crossing Support: Experience and Perspectives

The nuclear security summit of April 2010 strongly underlined the need for international cooperation for addressing the threat of nuclear terrorism. The three main pillars related to nuclear security are prevention, detection and response. If prevention fails and nuclear material is detected (through measurement systems or by intelligence), an appropriate response has to be initiated. An essential element of the response process is nuclear forensics.

Nuclear forensics is a highly specialized discipline in science, at the interface between physics, chemistry, and material science on the one hand, and between law enforcement and non-proliferation on the other. It aims at providing clues on the history of nuclear material which was intercepting from illicit trafficking. To this end, nuclear forensic investigations include the measurement of parameters that help determining the age, the intended use, the production process or the geographic origin of the material. While nuclear forensics may still be considered as an emerging discipline in science, nuclear forensic investigations have been carried out at many instances, supporting national and international authorities in the fight against illicit trafficking of nuclear material. During the past two decades, scientists at the European Commission, Joint Research Centre's Institute for Transuranium Elements (Karlsruhe, Germany) have analyzed nuclear material in the context of some 40 incidents. Numerous states called upon nuclear forensic support and requested analysis of intercepted nuclear material. This presentation will provide insights into the latest methodologies developed in nuclear forensic science and in the mechanisms that have been put in place to ensure that nuclear forensic investigations can be carried out, irrespective of the place (and country) of seizure of the material. Concrete examples of recent case work will serve for illustrating the processes and methodologies as well as the information on the origin and on the history of the material that is obtained.