Walter McNeil

Dr. Walter McNeil executes a wide breadth of research revolving around integrated radiation sensing systems and radiological measurement applications.  His experience include sensor device design, fabrication, testing, and modeling/simulation.  From nanometer scale device features to wide area radiological contamination mapping, Dr. McNeil has developed high performance devices, readout electronics, and processing algorithms to overcome the challenges of new and emerging applications and challenging operating environments.  Reducing size and power consumption while surviving increasinly harsh conditions is a special focus in Dr. McNeil's work.  Dr. McNeil has deployed numerous technologies throughout his career and his research motivation is to develop higher performance hardware which can translate immediately into fieldable solutions.

Dr. McNeil has invented and developed radiation sensors of all major types including, semiconductors, scintillators, and gas-chambers for gamma-ray, neutron, and charged particle radiation.  His interests are to improve performance and capability of radiation sensors, through new materials, packaging, read-out electronics, and system integration.

In modeling and simulation, Dr. McNeil drives physics-based models farther and deeper in coupled domains including nuclear radiation transport and device physics.  Digital twins of devices and device components require detailed internal physics analysis, and Dr. McNeil's simulation and modeling work has routinely output complex responses that accurately represent real physical devices, uncovering new physical mechanisms never before observed in simulation.