Design of a compact 1 MV AMS system for biomedical research

Abstract

The widespread use of accelerator mass spectrometry in biomedical research will require the development of cost-effective, laboratory-sized AMS systems which can be used in conjunction with conventional gas and liquid phase separation techniques. This paper describes the design of a low energy AMS system for the detection of 14C and 3H in labeled biological samples. The system utilizes a compact 1 MV tandem accelerator which incorporates a foil stripper. The low energy analyzer, accelerating column, and high energy analyzer are designed for efficient transport and analysis of both carbon and hydrogen beams using the minimum number of optical elements. The resulting instrument is very compact: the entire AMS system including the injector, ion source and high energy analyzer is just under 3 m wide and is approximately 1.3 m high and 1 m deep. The relatively small size of this system will allow its installation in most biomedical laboratory facilities. The system is predicted to provide a statistical precision of better than 2% for the quantitation of attomole samples.