Welcome to the Department of Nuclear Research!

NKO osztaly foto


The Department of Nuclear Research has been organized in 1992, and was lead by Professor Gábor L. Molnár until 2004.

Our mission is:
  • to develop and apply neutron-based elemental analysis and structure determination methods, with special emphasis on the prompt-gamma activation analysis,
  • to run a state-of-the-art prompt-gamma activation analysis (PGAA) laboratory, to establish a new in-beam Mössbauer-spectroscopy station (in co-operation with the Dept. of Radionuclide Applications)
  • to determine neutron-related nuclear data for international databases, and
  • to participate in the educational and research activities of the Institute. 
The group’s experimental activities are based on the Budapest Research Reactor. It has been upgraded to 10 MW thermal power in 1993 and completed with neutron guides. A cold neutron source of liquid hydrogen became operational in year 2000, that resulted in more intense beam of cold neutrons.

The Institute of Isotopes is a co-founder of the Budapest Neutron Center, a collaboration of four on-site institutions. It coordinates the scientific activities related to the Reactor, and - with the financial support of the EU FP6-FP7 NMI3 project - makes the facilities available to Hungarian and international users.  Other possibilities to have access to our instruments are the EU FP7 ERINDA project (nuclear data measurements for the design of new generation nuclear reactors and transmutation facilities) and EU FP7 CHARISMA (in the field of cultural heritage research).

Presently our department has 7 full-time staff scientists, 1 part-time colleague and 2 persons of supporting staff. The team benefits from the combination of the staff members' different scientific expertises: there are experimental physicists, analytical- and radiochemists and geologists in the group (see staff ).
Szilagyi Veronika Belgya Tamas Gmeling Katalin Revay Zsolt Jesse L. Weil Szentmiklosi Laszlo Kis Zoltan kasztovszky Zsolt