The brimRAD^TM Corporation is a recently formed company focused on the fabrication, production and delivery of next-generation, solid-state radiation detectors and picosecond detectors. brimRAD is employing the novel use of cadmium-magnesium telluride and mercurous halide materials to build a new generation of radiation and picosecond speed detectors. The new company is a member of the Brimrose family, which has a 45-year history of innovation and technological knowhow. It is poised to deliver improved detection capabilities for the free electron laser/synchrotron, medical, security, defense, aerospace and industrial markets.

The brimRAD Corporation is the inspiration of Dr. Ronald G. Rosemeier, founder of the Brimrose family of companies, and Dr. Sudhir Trivedi, the Director of R&D of Brimrose Technology Corporation (BTC). Together, they have generated more than $190 million in federal contracts for BTC, and have overseen the engineering of numerous products that has come from that technology and been transferred to the manufacturing side at Brimrose Corporation of America. Through his extensive work with advanced materials, Dr. Trivedi has developed a deep understanding of mercurous halides and cadmium magnesium telluride, which hold the potential to provide a better set of detectors for a variety of applications. brimRAD is incorporated and the name is trademarked.

The new company has the unique capability of being able to grow its own crystals, a compelling core advantage of the Brimrose companies for many years. This allows the company to design and engineer the detector crystal module to the specifications required for multifunctional, optical, x-ray and electrical applications. The large majority of the radiation detector market is supplied by 80-year old, scintillator-based technology presently used today. This slow and low efficiency technology continues to provide large, heavy and out-of-date, low-tech results. In recent years, a solid-state industry has begun to grow centered on cadmium-zinc-telluride (CZT) products. In typical Brimrose fashion, brimRAD is changing the technology tide.

These advanced, high-efficiency detection systems hold the promise of delivering an entirely new generation of products housing radiation detectors, including radiation sensors for the security industry; radiation detectors for new, improved and potentially smaller medical imaging devices; and sensing devices for the industrial community.
Through its development of cadmium-magnesium-telluride, BTC also is developing a next-generation of picosecond detectors for Department of Energy free electron lasers and synchrotrons as well as FELs and synchrotrons around the world. This detector initially will replace one that had been made by Hamamatsu, but that has been discontinued. This new BTC detector represents an important product in the brimRAD arsenal.

The U.S. Air Force and NASA already have provided Phase I and Phase II SBIR awards for the mercurous halide materials totaling over $2M. The Department of Energy has provided Phase 1 funding for the picosecond detector development.

Brimrose has successfully completed both Phase I and Phase II SBIR awards for the U.S. Department of Energy and is applying for a Phase IIB award to bring our CdMgTe radiation detectors to commercialization. We are working with a number of free electron laser/syhchrotron laboratories in order to effect this, including the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory (JLAB), SLAC, the Triangle Universities National Laboratory (TUNL), the University of Rochester, and others.

While the initial goal is to replace the discontinued Hamamatsu detector that DOE has requested for FEL/synchrotron applications, we believe the market for these hybrid radiation/photonic devise is much larger, embracing medical, defense and security applications, as well.

We are developing the radiation detectors that can improve NASA’s ability to determine the surface and subsurface composition of planetary bodies from orbiters and landers. Unlike most radiation detectors, these detectors can potentially perform both gamma and neutron spectroscopy. The new detectors are based on the mercurous halide materials.

For the U.S. Air Force, we are developing rugged, portable, low-cost and very-high-performance detectors from mercurous bromide (Hg₂Br₂) that can detect both gamma radiation and neutron particles in support of defense and security measures. The primary objective of the Phase II portion of the program is to develop a full-scale prototype, high performance, low cost, energy efficient and robust pager-form device, based on the novel mercurous bromide materials.

For the Department of Energy, we are developing next generation, picosecond speed CMT detectors that will improve our ability to decode data from these ultrafast accelerators, detectors that can detect both optical and x-ray signals.

To find out more about brimRAD 's new generation of radiation detectors, contact office@brimrad.com or call David Chaffee at 410-472-4975.