Glossary
Nuclear Technician Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential nuclear technician terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key nuclear technician vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in nuclear technician training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- ALARA
- As low as reasonably achievable.
- Contamination
- Radioactive material where it isn’t wanted.
- Dose
- Radiation absorbed by the body.
- Dosimeter
- Measures a worker’s dose.
- Frisking
- Checking for contamination.
- Half-life
- Time for half of a material to decay.
- Health physics
- The science of radiation protection.
- Ionizing radiation
- Radiation that can damage cells.
- Refueling outage
- A planned outage to refuel a reactor.
- Rem
- A unit of dose.
- RWP
- Radiation work permit.
- Shielding
- Material that blocks radiation.
- Smear
- A wipe sample for contamination.
- Stay time
- How long a worker can stay in an area.
- Survey meter
- Measures radiation levels.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Nuclear Technician practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Nuclear Technician training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.