The Gammasphere is a third generation gamma ray spectrometer used to study rare and exotic nuclear physics. It consists of 108 Compton-suppressed large volume, high-purity germanium detectors arranged in a spherical shell.
Gammasphere has been used to perform a variety of experiments in nuclear physics. Most experiments involve using heavy ion nuclear fusion to form a highly excited atomic nucleus. This nucleus may then emit protons, neutrons, or alpha particles followed by a shower of tens of gamma rays. Gammasphere is used to measure properties of these gamma-rays for tens of millions of such gamma ray showers. The resultant data is analyzed to gain a deeper understanding of the properties of nuclei.
Gammasphere was built in the early 1990s and has operated at the 88-inch cyclotron at Berkeley National Laboratory and at Argonne National Laboratory.
In the movie Hulk Bruce Banner is zapped by a machine called Gammasphere. The actual Gammasphere, which detects rather than emits gamma rays, was used as a model for the device shown in the movie.