Reassessment of 182Hf AMS measurements at VERA

The radioisotope182Hf (t1/2 = 8.9 Ma) is of great interest for astrophysical applications as a chronometer for the early solar system or as possible live supernova remnant on earth. However, AMS measurements of182Hf are seriously influenced by the presence of the stable isobar182W, which cannot be separated at typical AMS energies. Previous studies revealed a possible suppression of182W against182Hf by extracting the negatively charged pentafluoride HfF5- from the ion source, leading to a detection limit for182Hf/180Hf in the order of 10-11. However, this suppression behavior is in contrast to theoretical calculations of the electron affinity and recent measurements using SIMS instruments, where the achieved suppression cannot be reproduced. The aim of our study is to determine the effects of ion source background as well as further investigate the suppression of tungsten against hafnium by extracting negatively charged fluoride ions from different sample materials. The previously reported suppression factor of about 6000 could be increased to 36000 by careful tuning of the ion source using HfF4 as sample material. The trend of the theoretical electron affinities could be reproduced using atomic tungsten and hafnium instead of HfF4 as sample material. This supports the assumption that the major contribution of the tungsten background is not sputtered from the target matrix but comes from somewhere else in the ion source. Measurements from the second ion source show a higher background of tungsten and a lower suppression factor, i.e. careful design of the ion source is crucial. Moving the sputter beam over the target surface extending over the wheel holding the targets revealed the highest tungsten background was detected outside the sputter target position. Further investigations are necessary to locate the origin of the tungsten background in the ion source. Possible sources are the material used for the ion source construction or contaminations in the cesium used for sputtering

AMS of 36Cl with the VERA 3 MV tandem accelerator

Recent progress with compact ionization chambers has opened new possibilities for isobar suppression in accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). Separation of 36Cl (t1/2 = 0.30 Ma) at natural isotopic levels from its stable isobar 36S became feasible at particle energies of 24 MeV, which are also accessible for medium-sized tandem accelerators with 3 MV terminal voltage like VERA (Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator). Investigations with an ionization chamber revealed how physics favors isobar separation even at energies below the maximum of the Bragg curve. The strong energy focusing effect at high energy losses reduces energy straggling significantly and isobar separation steadily increases up to almost full energy loss. With an optimized detection setup, sulfur suppression factors of 2 × 104 have been achieved. Refraining from the additional use of degrader foils has the benefit of high transmission to the detector (∼16%), but requires a low sulfur output from the ion source. Therefore several backing materials have been screened for sulfur content. The dependence of the sulfur output on the AgCl sample size has been investigated as well. Precision and accuracy have been thoroughly assessed over the last two years. Since drifts in the spectra are efficiently corrected by monitoring the position of the 36S peak, the reproducibility for high ratio samples ( 36Cl/Cl > 10-12) is better than 2%. Our blank value of 36Cl/Cl ≈ (5 ± 5) × 10-16 is competitive to other labs. 36Cl has become a routine AMS-isotope at VERA. Recently we also explored novel techniques for additional sulfur suppression already in the ion source. While results with a small gas reaction cell in front of the sputter target were discouraging, a decrease in the sulfur/chlorine ratio by one order of magnitude was achieved by directing 300 mW continuous wave laser beam at 445 nm towards the cathode in the ion source