26Al and 36Cl AMS system at the University of Tsukuba: A progress report

Atomic spectrometry update. Industrial analysis: metals, chemicals and advanced materials

“…A similar progress report has been published by the workers at the University of Tokyo, who summarized their work determining 26 Al and 36 Cl. 224 Although their instrumentation is not as powerful as that at Oak Ridge, it is still capable of producing impressive data, with a LOD of 5 Â 10 À15 being achieved for Al/ 27 Al and of 2 Â 10 À14 for 36 Cl/ 35 Cl. Other examples of AMS published in this review period are papers by Bessho and colleagues, 225 who estimated the thermal fluence in the concrete of proton accelerator facilities from 36 Cl production and a paper by Whitney and Biegalski 216 who analyzed nuclear fuel cycles from isotopic ratios of waste products.…”

Atomic spectrometry update. Atomic mass spectrometry

“…A ''molecular pilot beam'' method that stabilized the terminal voltage with an accuracy of 0.1% improved measurement of 26 Al, 14 C, 36 Cl and 129 I at the University of Tsukuba facility. 24 Ions of the long-lived radionuclide and a molecular pilot beam with the same particle mass were extracted from the ion source and injected into the accelerator simultaneously. The determination of 26 Al was improved by extracting AlO À ions which produced a more intense beam than Al À ions used previously.…”

Issues and opportunities in accelerator mass spectrometry for stable isotopes

“…Since the accelerator has near zero beam current for many species of interest and since the system may be scanning, conventional beam current feedback loops are in general of little value except when examining a narrow range of isotopes. In such cases, for example, while examining the abundance of 26 Al or 36 Cl, the system may exploit a ''guide beam'' that provides, by energy analysis, a feedback signal to control the energy of the accelerator as is routine in accelerator technology (Sasa et al, 2007). When no such beam is available, one must rely on devices such as the generating voltmeter (GVM) (Gomes et al, 2000).…”