Dr. Weihua Zhang

Biography

Dr. Weihua Zhang Adjunct Research Professor Radiation Protection Bureau - Health Canada

Research Interest

I have a long-standing interest in the methodological development for identification and quantification of trace amounts of fission/activation products in environmental samples, which are often of primary importance for understanding and characterization of nuclear and radiological events in various area including nuclear power plant accidents, detection of clandestine nuclear tests in the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) regime, nuclear forensic and environmental studies. At present, a dual-Germanium radiation detection spectrometer has been recently developed at Radiation Protection Bureau (RPB) to enhance Canada's contribution and commitment to CTBT. With a pair of well-shielded detectors face-to-face, the system features of low background and high detection efficiency. Our newly designed system outperforms the conventional ground level detectors, by reducing cosmic-muon and natural radionuclide induced background signal. By further employing a gamma-gamma or/and beta-gamma coincidence detection technique, the detection capabilities on trace radioactivity will be largely improved. This is going to be a several-year project, in which Monte Carlo simulations with Geant4, data analysis with ROOT and routine calibrations and sample measurements are needed.