Accelerator Mass Spectrometry at High Voltage Engineering Europa (HVEE)

Abstract

In recent years, High Voltage Engineering Europa (HVEE) has demonstrated its capability of developing and installing turnkey accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) equipment for the analysis of, among others, 14C and 129I. Five 3MV systems using sequential and/or simultaneous injection are operational in the field today, and they have shown excellent long-term stability providing high-precision analyses on a routine basis. Another three AMS systems are in production. It is projected that for the time being, AMS will continue to broaden its field of applications; a saturation of the market of AMS facilities is not expected in the near future.To meet the specific demands of the biomedical research community, we have developed an extreme compact 14C AMS system comprising a hybrid ion source capable of handling both graphite as well as CO2 samples. The source is optimized for easy maintenance, accommodates up to 200 samples, and can be implemented in any other AMS system.More recently, HVEE has initiated the development of an AMS system capable of detecting, among others, 36Cl and 41Ca. The design will include a HVEE 5MV Tandetron™. The accelerator is currently under construction as part of an ion beam analysis system for the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (Spain).