Quantifying Morphological Features of α-UO with Image Analysis for Nuclear Forensics.

Morphological changes in UO based on calcination temperature have been quantified enabling a morphological feature to serve as a signature of processing history in nuclear forensics. Five separate calcination temperatures were used to synthesize α-UO, and each sample was characterized using powder X-ray diffraction (p-XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The p-XRD spectra were used to evaluate the purity of the synthesized U-oxide; the morphological analysis for materials (MAMA) software was utilized to quantitatively characterize the particle shape and size as indicated by the SEM images.