Precision ultra-sensitive trace detector for carbon-14 when it is at concentration close to that present in recent organic materials

Abstract

A method of detecting the amount of C-14 in a sample, comprising the following steps: ionizing the sample to form a negative-ion beam; deflecting said beam in a magnetic field and directing the deflected beam through a first acceptance aperture to remove all negative ions except mass-14 particles; accelerating said mass-14 negative ions to an energy E of the order of 10 MeV by a high voltage electrostatic field; stripping three electrons from a majority of said negative ions to form doubly-charged positive ions; deflecting said doubly-charged positive ions in an electrostatic deflecting field through 180.degree. and directing the deflected beam through a second acceptance aperture to remove particles in other than the 2.sup.+ charge state and particles with an energy other than E; accelerating the remaining particles to an energy of about 3E by said high-voltage electrostatic field; stripping an additional electron from about half of said 3E ions, whereby metastable mass-14 molecules are dissociated; directing the remaining 3E ions through a magnetic sector field which focuses the C-14 ions through a final defining aperture and onto a detector.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.