SAMOP 2023 – scientific programme

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MS: Fachverband Massenspektrometrie

MS 8: Accelerator Mass Spectrometry III

MS 8.2: Talk

Friday, March 10, 2023, 11:30–11:45, F128

Isobar separation in the actinide range with ILIAMS — •Andreas Wiederin^1,2, Karin Hain¹, Martin Martschini¹, Aya Sakaguchi³, Peter Steier¹, and Robin Golser¹ — ¹University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics - Isotope Physics, Austria — ²University of Vienna, Vienna Doctoral School in Physics, Austria — ³University of Tsukuba, Faculty of Pure and Applied Science, Japan

Isobaric background is among the main obstacles to the development of new AMS applications. By combining ILIAMS (Ion Laser InterAction Mass Spectrometry) with the actinide beamline of VERA (Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator), instrumental isobar separation in the mass range of the actinides has become available for the first time in AMS. ILIAMS combines an RFQ ion guide with high-powered lasers or reactive gases for isobar separation of anions at thermal energies.

The first application for ILIAMS in this mass range is the characterization of a recently produced ²³⁶Np spike material intended for normalizing environmental ²³⁷Np measurements. ILIAMS is used to monitor potential isobaric interference from ²³⁶U or ²³⁶Pu co-produced alongside the desired ²³⁶Np and even suppresses ²³⁶U by several orders of magnitude.

The isotopic ratios ²³⁸Pu/²³⁹Pu, ²⁴¹Pu/²⁴¹Pu, and ²³⁸Pu/²⁴¹Pu are used as fingerprints for nuclear emission sources but partially require extensive chemical separation procedures and tedious radiochemical analysis. First results indicate that ILIAMS will also enable unambiguous mass-spectrometric access to ^238,241Pu usually superimposed by isobaric background from ²³⁸U and ²⁴¹Am, respectively.