Nuclear weapons and armament control

Main Research Subjects:

• Natural science and technology based innovations for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation towards a nuclear-free world; verification of arms control treaties, concepts for international control of nuclear weapons usable materials (i.e. plutonium, highly enriched uranium, and tritium); Determination of anthropogenic sources of atmospheric radioactivity and its transport through the atmosphere.
• Development of procedures for large-scale environmental sampling for atmospheric Krypton-85 as an indicator for clandestine production of plutonium in connection with the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT).
• Development of methods for the global monitoring of atmospheric radio-xenon in order to verify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). In particular, we're pursuing the creation of a global emission inventory for radioactive xenon. We support the use of xenon isotope ratios both for the discernment between nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons testing (as well as to ascertain their possible origin), including the determination of when nuclear explosions have occurred, and to deduce the possible source region using atmospheric transport simulations.

Where is the ZNF in the global noble gas research for arms control? See the world map with all of the institutions working in this field.

Projects on these subjects

• Krypton-85 for the detection of plutonium production
• Disarmament verification
• Radioxenon for the detection of nuclear tests