Further improvement for 10Be measurement on an upgraded compact AMS radiocarbon facility

• Published in: Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section B, Beam interactions with materials and atoms Vol. 361; pp. 178 - 182
• Main Authors: Fu, Dongpo, Ding, Xingfang, Liu, Kexin, Müller, Arnold Milenko, Suter, Martin, Christl, Marcus, Zhou, Liping, Synal, Hans-Arno
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.10.2015
• Subjects: 10Be measurement; Additional magnet; AMS; Background; Boron nitride; Deflectors; Detectors; Electrostatics; Foils; Peking; Silicon; Spectrometers; 10Be measurement; Additional magnet; Background; AMS
• ISSN: 0168-583X; 1872-9584
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2015.01.059

The Peking University 500kV NEC compact AMS radiocarbon facility (PKU-CAMS) has been modified in order to have additionally the possibility to measure 10Be. In the preliminary experiment a silicon nitride foil was mounted in front of the electrostatic deflector as passive boron degrader, and the original Si detector for radiocarbon detection was replaced by an ETHZ-designed high-resolution ΔE−Eres gas ionization chamber (GIC) for 10Be identification. This simple arrangement has yielded an overall 10Be transmission of 2.2% and a 10Be/9Be background level of 3.5×10−14. To further reduce the background and increase the transmission by re-focusing the 10Be ions, an additional 90° bending magnet with 350mm radius was installed after the electrostatic deflector. The silicon detector was shifted slightly relative to its position of original NEC system setup in opposite direction of beam and can be lifted up manually without breaking vacuum when 10Be measurements are carried out. In this way the system can be easily and fast set up for 10Be without affecting any parameters for radiocarbon measurement. The gas detector for 10Be was mounted at the end of the beam line after the additional magnet. The lay-out of the upgraded spectrometer is very compact and does not require more space than the original instrument. Using this compact setup, the overall transmission for 10Be was doubled to 5–6% and the 10Be/9Be background level was reduced to radios as low as 2.4×10−15.