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Over the past century basic nuclear science research has led to the use of radioactive isotopes into a wide variety of applications that touch our lives everyday. Some are obvious, such as isotopes for medical diagnostics and treatment. Others are less so, such as National/Global security issues. And some we take for granted, like the small amount of 241 Am that is in every smoke detector. At the beginning of this century, we are in a position where the prevalence and importance of some applications of nuclear science are pushing the basic nuclear science community for improved models and nuclear data. Yet, at the same time, the push by the basic nuclear science community to study nuclei that are farther and farther away from stability also offer new opportunities for many applications. This talk will look at several global security applications of nuclear science, summarizing current R and D and need for improved nuclear data It will also look at how applications of nuclear science, such as to medicine, will benefit from the push for more and more powerful radioactive ion beam facilities.

The Rare Isotope Accelerator will produce many isotopes at never before seen rates. This will allow for the first‐time measurements on isotopes very far from stability and new measurement opportunities for unstable nuclei near stability. In fact, the production rates are such that it should be possible to collect 10 micrograms of many isotopes with a half‐life of 1 day or more. This ability to make targets of short‐lived nuclei enables the possibility of making neutron cross‐section measurements important to the astrophysics and the stockpile stewardship communities. But to fully realize this opportunity, the appropriate infrastructure must be included at the RIA facility. This includes isotope harvesting capabilities, radiochemical areas for processing collected material, and an intense, “mono‐energetic,” tunable neutron source. As such, we have been developing a design for neutron source facility to be included at the RIA site. This facility would produce neutrons via intense beams of deuterons and protons on a variety of targets. The facility would also include the necessary radiochemical facilities for target processing. These infrastructure needs will be discussed in addition to the methods that would be employed at RIA for measuring these neutron cross sections.

As part of the work building a small heavy-ion induction accelerator ring, or recirculator, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a diagnostic device measuring the four-dimensional transverse phase space of the beam in just a single pulse has been developed. This device, the Gated Beam Imager (GBI), consists of a thin plate filled with an array of 100-micron diameter holes and uses a Micro Channel Plate (MCP), a phosphor screen, and a CCD camera to image the beam particles that pass through the holes after they have drifted for a short distance. By time gating the MCP, the time evolution of the beam can also be measured, with each time step requiring a new pulse.