Aluminum nitride as a novel aluminum-26 ion source material for accelerator mass spectrometry

R. Flarend, M. E. Hasan, C. S. Reed

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

A high intensity cesium sputter source was used to measure the current of secondary Al- ions from aluminum nitride (AlN), aluminum diboride (AlB2), aluminum carbide (Al4C3), aluminum powder and aluminum oxide (Al2O3). It was found that AlN produced a substantially higher beam current than Al2O3. Aluminum diboride produced about the same amount of Al- current as the oxide while Al4C3 and the aluminum powder did not perform as well as the oxide. The performance of AlN as a target material for Al- ions depended heavily upon the exposure of AlN to air before being placed in the ion source. For samples with no exposure to air, the AlN produced much less current than Al2O3. For samples with a very short exposure to air, AlN yielded a fivefold improvement in the Al - current compared to the oxide. Thus aluminum nitride shows the promise of increasing the sensitivity and precision of low-level 26Al-accelerator mass spectrometry.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)263-266
Number of pages4
JournalNuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms
Volume223-224
Issue numberSPEC. ISS.
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2004

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
  • Instrumentation

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