Toward laser ablation Accelerator Mass Spectrometry of actinides

R. C. Pardo*, F. G. Kondev, S. Kondrashev, C. Nair, T. Palchan, R. Scott, D. Seweryniak, R. Vondrasek, M. Paul, P. Collon, C. Deibel, G. Youinou, M. Salvatores, G. Palmotti, J. Berg, J. Fonnesbeck, G. Imel

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

A project to measure neutron capture cross sections of a number of actinides in a reactor environment by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) at the ATLAS facility of Argonne National Laboratory is underway. This project will require the precise and accurate measurement of produced actinide isotopes in many (>30) samples irradiated in the Advanced Test Reactor at Idaho National Laboratory with neutron fluxes having different energy distributions. The AMS technique at ATLAS is based on production of highly-charged positive ions in an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source followed by acceleration in the ATLAS linac and mass-to-charge (m/q) measurement at the focus of the Fragment Mass Analyzer. Laser ablation was selected as the method of feeding the actinide material into the ion source because we expect it will have higher efficiency and lower chamber contamination than either the oven or sputtering techniques, because of a much narrower angular distribution of emitted material. In addition, a new multi-sample holder/changer to allow quick change between samples and a computer-controlled routine allowing fast tuning of the accelerator for different beams, are being developed. An initial test run studying backgrounds, detector response, and accelerator scaling repeatability was conducted in December 2010. The project design, schedule, and results of the initial test run to study backgrounds are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)281-286
Number of pages6
JournalNuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms
Volume294
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2013

Keywords

  • Accelerator Mass Spectrometry
  • Actinide Mass Spectrometry
  • ECR ion source
  • Integral neutron capture cross-section
  • Laser ablation
  • Superconducting linear accelerator

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Toward laser ablation Accelerator Mass Spectrometry of actinides'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this