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The New Gas Ion Source at CEDAD: Improved Performances and First 14C Environmental Applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2018

Lucio Calcagnile ,
Lucio Maruccio ,
Eugenia Braione  and
Gianluca Quarta
Lucio Calcagnile
Affiliation:
CEDAD (Centre for Dating and Diagnostics), Department of Mathematics and Physics “Ennio de Giorgi”, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Lucio Maruccio
Affiliation:
CEDAD (Centre for Dating and Diagnostics), Department of Mathematics and Physics “Ennio de Giorgi”, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Eugenia Braione
Affiliation:
CEDAD (Centre for Dating and Diagnostics), Department of Mathematics and Physics “Ennio de Giorgi”, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Gianluca Quarta*
Affiliation:
CEDAD (Centre for Dating and Diagnostics), Department of Mathematics and Physics “Ennio de Giorgi”, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
*
*Corresponding author. Email: gianluca.quarta@unisalento.it.
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Abstract

A new sputtering ion source has been installed at CEDAD (Centre for Dating and Diagnostics) at the University of Salento in Lecce, Italy. The installation of the new ion source, capable of accepting both solid and gas samples, required significant modifications of the existing low energy injector of the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) system. The new ion source is connected, through an in-house designed gas handling interface, to an elemental analyzer which combusts the samples to carbon dioxide and splits the gas into an IRMS system and also to the gas feed line of the ion source. This arrangement allows the simultaneous measurement of C, N content (in the EA), carbon and nitrogen stable isotopic ratios by IRMS and radiocarbon (14C) by AMS on samples with masses in the microgram range. The results of different tests performed to find optimal operational conditions and to improve the system performances are presented. The performances of the system as a function of the diameter of the glass capillary used to feed the source and the pressure of the gas mixture in the syringe are also presented. The achievable precision and blank levels are discussed together with the results obtained in environmental studies.

Keywords

environmentgas samplesmicrogram samplesradiocarbon
Type
Instrumentation
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 60 , Issue 4: 2nd Radiocarbon in the Environment Conference Debrecen, Hungary, July 3–7, 2017 Part 1 of 2 , August 2018 , pp. 1083 - 1089
Copyright
© 2018 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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References

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