Accelerator Mass Spectrometry at VERA – Current status and new developments

by Oliver Forstner (VERA-Laboratory, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna)

Thursday 13 Feb 2014, 14:30 → 15:30 Europe/Zurich

26-1-022 (CERN)

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) is a highly precise tool to measure minute concentrations of trace elements (mainly radioisotopes) on the ultra-trace level. Typical isotope ratios detected with AMS range from 10^-12 down to 10^-16. The challenge in measuring such low abundances is to eliminate all disturbing interferences by a combination of various highly selective filters. The first part of my talk will be an introduction into AMS which I will describe using the elements of VERA. The Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator (VERA) is a dedicated AMS facility at the University of Vienna based on a 3 MV pelletron tandem accelerator built by the National Electrostatics Corporation (NEC). Originally designed as device for radiocarbon measurements it was continuously upgraded to be a versatile machine for “all” isotopes. Radioisotopes measured at VERA range from the “standard” AMS isotopes ¹⁴C, ¹⁰Be, ²⁶Al, ¹²⁶I up to heaviest isotopes including ²³⁶U and ²⁴⁴Pu.
In the second part of my talk I will present details of the ¹⁰Be measurements performed on the ¹¹Be samples collected at ISOLDE and report on AMS measurements with nuclear astrophysics applications. As an outlook I will present the current research at VERA with the aim of extending the range of radioisotopes available to AMS.
 

Slides Forstner_201402_Isolde.pdf Forstner_201402_Isolde.pptx