The world is evolving and every nation is moving towards technology, more advanced technology at that, especially in the age of Artificial Intelligence, where we now have AI aided diagnostics, drugs administration and inbuilt chips to help visually impaired persons regain sight as long as their cortex are not entirely damaged. Science has gone past the medieval and primitive style, giving the health sector a glimpse of hope. In this interview, DR SAMUEL AJAYI, a Doctorate Degree Holder in Nuclear Physics from Florida State University in the USA, speaks with award winning journalist, DAMILOLA ODUNUKAN.
Dr Ajayi shares the countless benefits of the projects he worked on during his programme at the Florida State University, how it can help fight terrorism in Nigeria, as well as help treat patients living with Cancer. More importantly, he debunks the stereotypical beliefs of the threats Nuclear weapons pose to the society.
Could you introduce yourself and what your research work is all about as well as what you do.
I’m Samuel Ajayi and my research work is in the nuclear physics, experimental nuclear physics. That’s a broad category. In my field, specifically, I study the structure of nuclei and what that simply means is that there’s something called the chart of a nuclei, and I am big in that area. As a professional, I have studied the elements or components of a nuclei which in basic chemistry are oxygen, fluorine, all those kinds of elements, including hydrogen and the likes.
So, in the chart of nuclear, what we have is the nucleus of each element. That’s what I study. Nucleus is the plural of nuclei. I basically study what the structure of the nucleus is. And then when I study that, some of the things I get when I study that is the excitation energy in the nucleus of elements. How the protons and neutrons are arranged. What the interaction between the protons and neutrons look like.
We study them at an excited state; that means, if they receive energy, they can go to another excited state; that means they can also release energy; they can release particles, radiations, and the likes. And of course, those radiations have uses in different industries. They are used in the health sector, for example; because if you look at the health sector, in the treatment of cancer, for example, people talk about radioisotopes and different radioisotopes which are used in that sector.
Now people can do that because somebody has studied the properties of the nucleus which they are using and they can say oh there’s this gamma ray energy in this radioisotope or in this nucleus which we are using and then they can say what can we do with this gamma ray energy, so all those things are the structure of the nucleus and then when you study the structure it can be applied.
Basically, what I’m doing is studying the structure of the nuclear. People talk about half-life of different elements and the life, study the lifetimes of elements. I will say I do gamma ray spectroscopy to study the structure of nuclei or nucleus of atomic elements, which are powerful. They have different applications that range from different industries like forensic for instance, let’s say Boko Haram, God forbid; but let’s assume they gain more power and they start using nuclear material and they’re trying to smuggle it across the border, they’ve already concealed it in a certain way.
So, what I do, which is nuclear gamma-ray spectroscopy is also a way of identifying what nuclear material someone is coming into a certain place with.
We can just quickly make a quick reaction with what the person is coming in. Maybe do a shoot a proton to eat the material. You see, observe it at the excited state. Then I can tell them, oh, this person is carrying polonium, or this person is carrying uranium. Please arrest him.
So those are some of the things that we do those reactions, nuclear reactions basically that’s the way we can study this nuclear structure. I won’t go into all the real technical details which is more mathematics and some other coding things, of course those are tools in studying what I studied but basically we are just studying elements, nucleus of atomic elements of or nucleus of atoms. Basically, that’s what I studied.
I have a bit knowledge of chemistry. When nuclei are in their excited states, they tend to emit gamma rays, radioisotopes, and all of that.
DR AJAYI CUTS IN. You see those gamma rays that they emit is what I try to detect. When I detect them, I can say, oh, if this gamma ray is coming from this nucleus, this spectrum, what is gamma ray looks like, then I can use it to identify what the nucleus is. And I can also identify the energy of the gamma ray. Now, most of these things are using treatment of cancer, they are gamma rays, energy and the lives that you shoot.
X-ray, for example, X-ray has different things we can use it to do diagnostics. X-rays have their own different energy and they are produced from atoms basically, while gamma rays are produced from the nucleus, basically. Because, of course the advances in nuclear energy now, people understand the gravity of nuclear energy and how this is way greater than anything at the atomic level.
People are really probing into the nucleus. Of course, people are still studying the atoms as a whole generally, but people are probing into the nucleus more and more. And that’s why this structure is very important because of the potential for it to be of the energy strong force, we call it the strong force, the potential is us.
That was actually brilliant. You mentioned something like what these radioisotopes can be used for. You mentioned the health, the forensics, which can be used in fighting terrorism or kind of advanced technology that can be used to tackle insecurity. What other sectors apart from forensics, health, to treat cancer, can your research work be used for; what other sectors? Can you mention them and expatiate more in those sectors?
Yeah, so some of the things you want to do in nuclear energy, for example, the way nuclear energy works is through fission reaction. So some of the things that research can dive into, research into fission, we call it fission analysis, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, they go on and because it’s the same fission process. We do research in that area to understand the cross section.
Cross section simply means what is the probability that this reaction will take place. So we can calculate cross sections of different reactions.
So you are saying, we have this material, we have this neutron, we are shooting it together. We are splitting this big heavy nucleus into two. And then we are trying to measure the momentum in what direction will they go? These are some of the details that go into some of this technological work that you see. So those are some of the things that need that can be done. Before you can do this, you need to understand the nuclear structure of whichever elements you are combining.
You need to say this nucleus has this excitation energy.
This nucleus has this excitation energy. If we fuse it together, there will be a barrier between them because there is a Coulomb barrier. So, you need to understand what is that energy that we must give this nucleus to make it come and smash it together and then for you to split again to create more energy.
This can be used in nuclear reactors, for example, they can be used for nuclear weapons. Yes, there’s also the other aspect, which is a very good aspect, which is the radiation protection. We can try and we do experiments, for example, we ran an experiment, sometimes ago where we try to understand material in the body, for example, what you can simulate; what material the body is made of.
You can say the body is made of carbon. So let’s try and see through different energy or you say the water molecules use in the body. You use your target as water or something, depending on the elements you’re interested in, or oxygen, part of it, because those are some of the elements or things you have in the body.
Or you want to deal with how radiation affects the tissue, you can simulate, make a target that will look like your tissue and you shoot your radioactive materials on it and try to see what the reaction looks like. Conclusively, you can say, this is probably what goes on in the body too if this kind of reaction happens.
Technically, you can say the cross section for this reaction taking place or the probability for this reaction taking place is so and so. You conclude that these are the energies that will be produced; the gamma rays or these are the particles, charged particles that will produce.
It helps to identify the type of particle that is dangerous and which is not dangerous as well. So, you can say, oh, if this thing reacts with the body, this is what will happen. But you have simulated it in the lab. This helps in radiation protection; this kind of radiation is very dangerous to the body. These are some of the things that we can do which still goes to the health sector.
And there is other part which is radiation protection. You already know the energy level of the materials you have studied, the nuclear structure. You already know the energy level; you know, the gamma rays that are coming out from it. And you can say the gamma ray is very high, it’s very intense; this helps to detect the intensity of the danger in such rays.
Therefore, because we have the understanding if there is an activity that produces such radiation around, because we have studied it in the lab, we know this is dangerous. You may not feel radiation coming to your body and you feel, oh, it’s hot, you know, you feel it. But because we can study the energy, we will be able to tell people around the area that say this is not safe. is radiation protection. That’s one of the things that we can review.
Of course, there is also the part which not many people in general public may appreciate, but people are trying to study the origin of the universe. For example, you want to see at the Big Bang what happened. You know, it’s all radiation, it’s all different nuclear time to form together.
We can simulate all those reactions that took place billions of years ago. We simulate it in the lab and say, oh, this is how the formation of the universe took place. This is a process that happened. It was started by light elements, hydrogen, for example, and then hydrogen to hydrogen, and then you start building gradually until you have some very heavy materials. These are some of the things we do.
Then also making the field you are current with the chart of nuclear, you will see that new nuclei are being produced, they are being made. Some of the things that we do is also experimenting, finding new heavy nuclei. Okay, so that we can say, we found a new element.
One was announced last year at Lawrence Berkeley, because some of those guys are my friend, I remember. So the new element, I think, Oganesson was announced. So these are some of the things we do. And before you know it, when we study the nuclei properties, the nuclei structure of this new element, we can see things that are beneficial based on the energy level we find in them, based on the gamma-ray they are emitting, based on the lifetime.
Let’s say you go to the hospital now and they say, well, they want to treat you with, say, Technetium-99. And the gamma ray that needs to come, the half-life is very long. You stay in the hospital for maybe the half-life is five days or three minutes, before they convey it from one hospital to another the element has completely decayed because of the very short half-life it has. The research we do will help to say this is a lifetime.
From lifetime, you can convert lifetime to half-life. So you can say, this is a lifetime. This is the time it takes to decay. So whatever it’s transferring or whatever it’s moving from what we know, this is the strength these things still have after how many days. You can do all those calculations and say, this amount of nuclear will still remain in it. And this is the strength nuclear is still having. So those are some of the uses too. Basically, it’s studying that nucleus and see what the application is based on the properties.
I read an article on AI, whereby the writer said that when one tells the AI agent – chat GPT ‘thank you’ and ‘please’, it tends to consume more electricity. In the article, there was a part where, I think it’s in the US, the artificial intelligence is actually consuming a lot of water more than what a certain country uses. This AI is also said to have a lot of emissions more than even fossil fuel or so. I took my time to think about this, compare it to the fossil fuels emissions, the global warming, climate change and the likes. Yet, we are being told to use electric cars, move towards clean energy.
So, I sat down to think about it; the emissions that are being generated from artificial intelligence, the water it consumes and all of these things are even much higher and riskier than what was not considered clean enough as a source of energy, which was of fossil fuels. My question is, do you think this research, this research work, radioisotopes, gamma rays, emission, and all of this, do you think they have any side effects or probably long-term consequences on human and the environment? How safe do you think these radioisotopes and the gamma emissions are on human, the environment, the earth at large?
Everything will always have one risk generally. Even driving from one place to another, someone can suddenly have an accident and then no one will say, oh, because there’s a possibility of having an accident, I’m not going to drive again. No.
Everything has its own risk. Coal has its own; the CO2 gas and the like, CO2 emission. We have got the greenhouse effects and the likes. But nuclear energy is considered clean. And this is why, number one, there is nothing like CO2 gas generation and the likes. even when you deal with nuclear energy, when you deal with other things. But the problem you can have is radiation emission. And that’s why we have radiation safety.
Part of the things I do or deal with involves radiation safety to how we can make sure that the environment is clean. Remember I talked about half-life at the beginning. Every nuclear, every unstable nuclear have their half-life. And what that means is that they decay gradually until their activity is near zero. I said near zero and not zero because it’s an exponential curve.
And if you know how the exponential curve goes, it just turns towards zero, not exactly zero, but it’s not really active again. So nuclear materials are used, nuclear waste, for example, they have a site where they are usually buried for a number of years. And when that happens, the decay is happening down there and then the activity is reducing gradually until it dies almost totally.
Apparently, the risk you can have is the risk of people getting exposed to radiation, but there are safety measures for all these things. There’s something we call ALARA. ALARA simply means ‘As Low As Reasonably Achievable’. That means in every situation, in any health situation or in any working condition, you need to make sure you limit your exposure to radiation as low as reasonably achievable.
If you go for X-ray, for instance, you are being exposed to radiation, obviously, but there is the good part outweighs what can happen to you. Of course, I’m not advising anyone to go for X-ray often, it’s not good, because, you increase your risk of getting the cells in your body damaged by radiation.
That’s why those who do radiotherapy, for example, they call something fractionated dose. That means, let’s say you need the dose you need is one MEV. We will not give you that one MEV straight away, or one MEV of gamma ray. We won’t just give you that one MEV, because we are trying to, let’s say someone has breast cancer, and then they are trying to target the tumor in the breast.
We won’t have that one MEV straight away. They will fractionate it. On a certain day you get 80 keV. It eats that part. It may eat the other parts of the body, but those parts get repaired. Then they target that same location, give you 120. Another location, they give you 100. They may give you that 1 MEV over a period of 10 times. Let’s say 10 doses. They give you 100 KEV ten times until the 1 MEV completes.
The reason is because, even though it has the benefit of destroying the cancer cell or the tumor, it can reach surrounding areas which are cancer free and damage that part if we give you that one MEV straight away. That one MEV, straight away of course, will kill the cancer cell, but it will damage the other part. So they have to fractionate it and wait a couple of days or weeks for the cells to be multiplied; when the cells repair themselves, they multiply and then they eat it again. They’re trying to eat that tumor until the tumor dies.
Truly, there is always that risk of radiation exposure, but as low as reasonable achievable. And there are three things that we do to try to do that. These are: number one, just limit the time you spend in a radiation area. And that’s why you see anybody working in a radiation area have their dosimeter. I have some pictures where I have my dosimeter on me.
Every time I go into radiation area, it measures the amount of radiation I’m exposed to. And they can take it to the lab and then measure the amount that I’ve been exposed to. OK, you’ve received too much radiation for this certain time. Stay out of radiation area for this period of time, so you limit the time. There’s also shielding. You’ve gone to do x-ray before and you see that. They stay in a shielded area because the radiation can travel in the building and get scattered from the walls and then comes back to the person who is operating.
So, there is the shielding. You limit the time and then you keep your distance away from the radiation area. So those are the three things. Those are three ways to which that happens. When you talk about CO2 exposure, no, we don’t have that emission in radiation. What the emission we can have is radiation and that’s why there is a safety precautions which is always taken care of and then we also know that they can decay over time so, radiation wastes are usually buried in certain locations and those locations of course there might be radioactivity going on there that’s why mining activities are monitored because in mining activities there are radiations that we call naturally occurring radioactive materials.
There are radiations which you can add there too and those things are monitored too. And radiation experts are there to monitor what is going on to calculate the activity of different radioactive materials that you have there. For example, radon is one gas that you can add in those type of area because radon, if you look at uranium, you take series. Radon is one of the daughter products of uranium.
Radon in large quantity will cause cancer because it emits Alpha particles, and when alpha particles go into the body, it ionizes the cells in the body, and while the cells are fighting to repair themselves, this process cause cancerous cells which multiply and that cause cancer. in the environment, when we have alpha particles, they travel far distances, they get on your skin, they can’t penetrate.
But when it is inhaled, when radon gas is inhaled, that’s where it becomes a problem. They can cause lung cancer. In short, we understand this radiation, we know what their energy is. That’s we study what we study to know these properties I’m telling you about, let’s say alpha particles, for example, is because we know this, understand this nuclear structure, alpha particles and helium nuclei.
We understood the nuclear structure, what happens with it, do this type of ionization. Because this experiment performed, you have a helium nuclear shoot it with a tissue that looks like what some of the body parts in the body, you see the reaction, you see what goes on. You see the cross section, you understand that all this reaction can happen in the body. But on the skin, then you won’t have this type of reaction. It gets stuck. Nuclear reaction will not happen, because these are the structure of things we have studied.
We understood the risk and then understanding the safety measures, which we already put in. And I know in Nigeria, for example, the problem many people have with using nuclear is fear of takeover from terrorists. Even the normal oil drilling and the likes if terrorists take over that, it is disastrous for the country too. Anything can be disastrous for the country. So that’s why there is always a safety measure for everything. If we go nuclear tomorrow now, there will have to be safety measures.
And I think we need to think beyond the problem and look at the advantages. If you want to go and do x-ray for your chest now, you won’t be thinking, what if I get too much exposure to x-ray? You are thinking, I need to get this x-ray done so that I can see what is wrong with me. We want to get power. We need to think we need to get power and not think what if Boko Haram takes over. I know of a professor that I have gotten in touch with it quite a number of times. She’s Armenian.
She has been to Armenia to help them set up a radioactive radioisotope facility, production facility. Nigeria can produce this radioisotope. We just need our accelerator. We need the right target and then the right people understand how this reaction works.
And we’ll start producing the radioisotopes that we’ll be using in our hospitals, that we’ll be using in different places. Nigeria can do it. In fact, it’s not a new research. People already understood the nuclear structure of the materials that will be used. It’s about getting those nuclear, those materials and producing our radioisotopes ourselves. It’s very possible.
In summary to your question, we understand the risk and then there are safety measures that are always in place.
Can you share just a few of those safety measures, if it’s something you can actually explain?
Yes, the safety measures, as I’ve mentioned earlier, the ALARA which is ‘As Low As Reasonably Achievable; the dose limit, you set dose limits for those who are workers. You have your radiation badge.
The radiation badge measures all the radiation that comes into your body, once it’s beyond a certain limit, you can’t walk in that area. There are dose limits for those who are pregnant. There are dose limits for children. There are dose limits for the general public. Each part of the body has their own dose limits. Your eyes, we know that the eyes are very sensitive.
Remember I talked about the reaction, which we always do to know how sensitive the body parts are. We can’t always do that in nuclear reaction. The retina in the eyes, for example, is very sensitive. The reproductive organs are very sensitive.
You have to measure the radiation which is coming to you. This enables one to know, the amount they’ve been receiving. And then when person has to remember, time spent, distance from the area, shielding material. it’s because we have understood the nuclear structure of this material. That’s why the lead shell can be used. If you have a lead shield over you, for example, the radiation cannot get to you because it protects you from all this radiation, no matter the type of radiation, whether gamma ray, beta particles, alpha particles, they get stopped by the shield.
They can’t get to you. The reaction can’t get to you. If you’ve seen people who put on all this shield and wear very heavy shield, it’s the lead shield. That’s one of the ways we can protect ourselves from that. The beautiful thing is that once we remove radioactive material from a particular area, you can put it to another.
CO2 is released in our environment. It’s going to continue its damage. It will go into the atmosphere to continue all those damage. But nuclear material, the thing in that material is that such an area may be radioactive for a while, but remember, half-life, they decay over a period of time until it is near zero, which at that point, they are weak. They cannot really do anything again.
I read one your posts where you mentioned how your nuclear energy can be beneficial to Nigeria, also, one of your posts talking about radio isotopes, what you intend to do with the Nigerian government. Have you ever considered petitioning the National Assembly or the Nigerian government to look towards the nuclear physics or what you’re actually building and the solutions they bring to terrorism, insecurity and the health sector at large?
Well, I’ve not done any petitioning. I believe if Nigeria is ready to do it, honestly, the problem is because we are not ready. It’s not as if all I’m saying is new to the Physicists in Nigeria. It’s not as if all I’m saying is new to those who are in charge of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the likes. Nigeria has a National Nuclear Regulatory Authority, NNRA. And when I was in Nigeria, I’d been to their office in Ibadan before to see what they do.
So, it has to be the duty of protecting the environment; there is a research reactor in Zaria, there is a 1.7 MEV tandem accelerator in Obafemi Awolowo University. Even the 1.7 MeV is small, but it can do something. There are those who, currently, what they are doing with IASPR, with that tandem accelerator, they are doing material analysis, not exactly something nuclear. So when I see such a thing, like you have this particle accelerator and then this is what you are doing with it, we can do more with this.
These are some of the equipment hospitals actually need. They need those who understand how to produce the radioisotopes; people who understand this radio protection. So, if Nigerian knows what can be done, it’s just that until we are ready to do it, even if I petition from now till tomorrow, I’ll just be wasting my time, honestly, because there are people there who understand what needs to be done. And the problem with the Nigerian system again is that some of these researches or the production of results to continue to be effective.
Electricity, for example, where some of us do experiment for weeks, the electricity is constant. Nobody’s changing it. We are not turning anything on. Everything just keeps in like that. We can’t have that type of thing in Nigeria. Most problems need to be dealt with before we can start talking about, or dealing with these or doing research work.
The Nigerian government knows what needs to be done if they really want to do it. People who are close to those who know these are the things that are needed. It seems for now everybody is just out for themselves. And if you go into such an area where nobody wants to work, nobody is willing to do anything and they expect you to just be signing documents, you won’t be able to do anything. You will end up being like everyone there – signing documents.
You sit in one big office where they assign to you. As I mentioned earlier, there is a professor from Armenia that I know. She went back to Armenia to work with the government to set up their radioisotope production facilities. This is a professor I know. I’ve spoken with her a number of times. She was meeting with the President of Armenia and they were able to do all these things. They started producing their own radioisotopes, even some things that have to do with PET scanning, proton emission therapy.
Meanwhile, these are things that Nigeria actually needs. I believe if we wouldn’t be spending 21 billion on renovating houses, why can’t we bring it towards research or bring it towards things that can make the life of people good, improve the health sector, fight insecurities and terrorism.
Some of the equipment that we talk about, of course, they are not cheap; but what Nigerian government is spending on frivolities too is not small. Therefore, there should not be excuse that they are expensive to purchase, thereby saying we cannot give. They are spending a lot on other things.
A Senator would buy a $50,000 car? $50,000 and we have how many of them, over 100 of them in the legislature. Whereas, one of the equipment that we use, gamma ray detector, high-purity Germanium detector, is 200,000. So for four sensors, take four cars from one of the sensors. We buy one high-purity Germanium detector. Take 40 from 40 sensors, and we have 10 high-purity Germanium detectors. So it’s about coming into work space.
Could you pls give a summary of your projects, and what they entail and how the Nigerian government can actually look into that and the significance of it to the people as well as put the country on the global space of modern technology.
Yes, as I mentioned earlier, I deal with nuclear structure, some atomic nuclei, I worked on 59 Cobalt, 59 Nickel 61 Cobalt and 62 Nickel basically I studied their excited states I found different gamma rays in them that are present in them. In three of the nuclei, I found new gamma rays. And in all of nuclei, I try to investigate how these gamma rays or how this energy level are structured. When you talk about the shape of nucleus, how does the nuclear shape looks like? What is going on in the nucleus?
What type of excitation is going on in the nucleus? So these are the things I studied. For example, the new gamma rays I studied now can be used to identify the gamma rays, the nuclei which I have studied and then we shine, or we do a proton-atomic reaction, we can identify and say, oh, someone like Samuel Ajayi has studied this gamma ray as this nuclear. We now found this gamma ray.
Oh, that means that the nuclear this guy is carrying around, therefore, we can know that. And of course, I studied some of the lifetime of some of these gamma ray spectroscopy, which is what I do, it is very, important, especially for forensics. Very important.
That’s the way you identify what the material is. Of course, when you finish identifying the material, you can say, based on the gamma energy that these materials have, we can use it in the application for this.
Or someone may say, oh Samuel Ajayi in 2024 discovered that 59 nickel has a 20 MeV excited state.
Now we want to create this radioactive material. If we want to overcome this barrier, the 50, 20 MEV plus this 20 MEV and then you understand what the reaction is. It helps to understand the cross-section. It helps to say, will this reaction be feasible or not based on what I have done. Like it’s really, really needed in the country.
