Abstract

ABSTRACTA setup for ion-laser interaction was coupled to the state-of-the-art AMS facility VERA five years ago and its potential and applicability as a new means of isobar suppression in accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) has since been explored. Laser photodetachment and molecular dissociation processes of anions provide unprecedented isobar suppression factors of >1010 for several established AMS isotopes like 36Cl or 26Al and give access to new AMS isotopes like 90Sr, 135Cs or 182Hf at a 3-MV-tandem facility. Furthermore, Ion-Laser InterAction Mass Spectrometry has been proven to meet AMS requirements regarding reliability and robustness with a typical reproducibility of results of 3%. The benefits of the technique are in principle available to any AMS machine, irrespective of attainable ion beam energy. Since isobar suppression via this technique is so efficient, there often is no need for any additional element separation in the detection setup and selected nuclides may even become accessible without accelerator at all.

Highlights

  • The backbone of the outstanding abundance sensitivity of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is its ability to nearly completely suppress isobaric interferences

  • A setup for ion-laser interaction was coupled to the state-of-the-art AMS facility VERA five years ago and its potential and applicability as a new means of isobar suppression in accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) has since been explored

  • Since isobar suppression via this technique is so efficient, there often is no need for any additional element separation in the detection setup and selected nuclides may even become accessible without accelerator at all

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

The backbone of the outstanding abundance sensitivity of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is its ability to nearly completely suppress isobaric interferences. While a favorable choice of the anion species from the ion source (hydrides, oxides, fluorides) may partly accomplish this (e.g., Raisbeck et al 1981; Vockenhuber et al 2004), isobar suppression typically relies on nuclear physics means in the detection setup: differential energy loss, gasfilled-magnets, degrader or absorber foils or full stripping All of these techniques have in common that their performance increases with kinetic energy or velocity of the ions and that. Differences in EAs or, in case of molecules, in vertical detachment energies (VDE) for isobar pairs are typically at least several tenths of eV (Andersen et al 1999; Rienstra-Kiracofe et al 2002) such that commercial lasers of suitable photon energy are usually readily available These may either be cw-lasers or pulsed laser with repetition rates above several ten kHz. In case atomic anions have the wrong order of EAs for ILIAMS isobar suppression, a suitable molecular system has to be found to meet the requirements.

Background
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CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK

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