Andrew Carpe

Charles Gentile

Steve Langish

Nuclear detection system inventors at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have received a 2008 Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award. Charles Gentile, Andrew Carpe and Stephen Langish, who developed the Miniature Integrated Nuclear Detection System (MINDS), received the honor from the Research and Development Council of New Jersey during a November 6 dinner in Basking Ridge.

The award, which fell under the homeland security category, notes the team's invention and patent of MINDS. The PPPL team was among nine overall winners.

"PPPL's Charlie Gentile, Andy Carpe, and Steve Langish are well deserving of the prestigious Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award for their patent on MINDS," said Mike Williams, PPPL Associate Director for Engineering and Infrastructure. "I congratulate them for their accomplishment, the distinction they have brought to Princeton University and PPPL, and the hope that the deployment of this technology will make the world a safer place."

The team, led by engineer Gentile, developed the antiterrorism device with applications in transportation and site security. MINDS can be used to scan moving vehicles, luggage, cargo vessels, and the like for specific nuclear signatures associated with materials employed in radiological weapons. It could be employed at workplace entrances, post offices, tollbooths, airports, commercial shipping ports, as well as in police cruisers, to detect the transportation of unauthorized nuclear materials.

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, funded by the DOE and managed by Princeton University, is a collaborative national center for science and innovation leading to an attractive fusion energy source. Fusion is the process that powers the sun and the stars. In the interior of stars, matter is converted into energy by the fusion, or joining, of the nuclei of light atoms to form heavier elements. At PPPL, physicists use a magnetic field to confine plasma. Scientists hope eventually to use fusion energy for the generation of electricity.