0000000000364836

AUTHOR

B. M. Suri

Trace Analysis of Plutonium and Technetium by Resonance Ionization Mass Spectrometry Using an Atomic Beam and a Laser Ion Source

A method for low level detection of plutonium and technetium is described with a detection limit of less than 107 atoms. Plutonium is a very toxic element due to its radioactive decay as well as its chemical behaviour. It was released to the environment in large amounts during the fifties and sixties of his century, principally by nuclear-weapon tests and some accidents. As a result about 0.4 − 4 mBq per gram 239Pu(T1/2 = 24390 y), corresponding to 4 × 108 − 4 × 109 atoms, can be found in the Northern Hemisphere in soil samples.

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A high-temperature laser ion source for trace analysis and other applications

We report here on the development of a high-temperature laser ion source useful for trace analysis and other applications. It consists of a high temperature ionization chamber, three tunable dye lasers pumped by copper vapor lasers for stepwise resonant ionization and a Mattauch-Herzog mass spectrometer for the analysis of photo-ions. The principle of the laser ion source and its theoretical efficiency are discussed, where the efficiency of a laser ion source is the ratio of photo-ions extracted out to the number of atoms introduced into the cavity. Experimentally, an efficiency of 2×10−3 has been achieved for technetium. The scheme of gated detection is described which is used for suppress…

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Release Studies of Atomic Technetium

Application of a laser ion source (LIS) is a promising new technique for trace analysis with high efficiency and selectivity. One of the problems which can limit its efficiency attained in practice is the adsorption of sample atoms on the hot walls of the LIS cavity. We have studied the release of atomic technetium from different wall materials at temperatures up to 2500 K. For these investigations resonance ionization of technetium atoms applying a copper vapour pumped dye laser system and γ-spectrometry of 6-h 99mTc have been used. Theoretical calculations of the heat of desorption for technetium on different wall materials are presented and compared with experimental data. Though the res…

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