Production and characterization of standard particles for rL-SNMS

Abstract

In this work, uranium-and plutonium-baring particles were produced by fast iron co-precipitation for the purpose of creating homogeneous multi-element standards. A set of single isolated particles showing no inhomogeneities in the element distribution were selected. These particles were used to determine the maximal achievable suppression ratios for uranium in Resonant Laser Secondary Neutral Mass Spectrometry (rL-SNMS) measurements of plutonium. It was shown for the first time directly that suppression-ratios in the order of three magnitudes are achievable with a resonant two-step excitation scheme for non-destructive measurements.

Multi-Element Isotopic Analysis of Hot Particles from Chornobyl

“…Alternating the on-and off-resonance lasers ensures that drifts in signal level over time do not affect the result. While it is possible to do this in a two-step scheme [1,50], a three-step scheme is more successful at suppressing 238 U [2,3].…”