Abstract
The r-process nuclide 244Pu (t1/2=80.8Myr) was extant in the Early Solar System and is presently considered as extinct. However, fresh 244Pu produced in the Galaxy, may reach the Solar System and Earth through influx of interstellar dust or as direct ejecta from supernovae. Detection of such traces requires high sensitivity, discrimination power and efficiency. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), despite low efficiency, is the method of choice. We report on the successful detection of 244Pu by AMS, using highly-charged positive ions produced in an Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion source and accelerated with the superconducting heavy-ion linear accelerator ATLAS at Argonne National Laboratory. 244Pu34+,35+,36+ ions with a final energy of 0.7MeV/u were dispersed in m/q using the Argonne Fragment Mass Analyzer (FMA) and are well discriminated from parasitic ions. A count rate of 0.7 244Pucounts/min was observed for a sample containing 2.7×108244Puatoms/mg. The technique described here is presently used, with improved setup and accelerator conditions, for the measurement of neutron capture cross sections in the actinide region.
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