铍(Be)的两种长寿命放射性同位素10Be与7Be在地质及环境科学等领域有着广泛的运用,对于二者准确、灵敏、便捷、低成本和快速的测定一直是科学家们基于实际应用所追求的目标。二者不同的衰变模式与半衰期决定了测量的主要方式:10Be依赖于加速器质谱法(AMS);而7Be最为广泛的是γ射线能谱法,但7Be的AMS测量可以弥补γ射线能谱法相对效率低,灵敏度差的劣势。本文回顾了10Be与7Be的加速器质谱测量研究现状与进展,特别是结合不同的原理与方法介绍了10Be-AMS技术的发展。以此同时,本文还介绍了西安加速器质谱中心3 MV AMS测量10Be的工作的现状,及近期结合超级卤素负离子对10Be测量的新方法;并对7Be-AMS测量在Xi’an-AMS上的可能性初探进行报道。
Background, aim, and scope Both are long-lived radioactive isotopes of Beryllium (Be), which have been widely used in geological and environmental science and other fields. Scientists have long been pursuing an accurate, sensitive, convenient, economic and rapid measurement technique for 10Be and 7Be, suitable for a wide range of materials. The variety of measurement techniques developed have been determined in part by the different decay modes and half-lives of the two isotopes. Materials and methods 10Be analyses rely instead on accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), primarily because the β decay rate for 10Be is too slow for decay counting small samples. The most widely used technique for 7Be analyses is γ-ray Counting. AMS also offers advantages for the measurement of 7Be, with inherently higher efficiency and sensitivity, as compared to γ-ray counting. Results The history of 10Be-AMS, has experienced the cyclotron, the large (≥5 MV) tandem accelerator, small (≤3 MV) accelerator combined with carbon film, step by step, until now the commercial small accelerator combined with silicon nitride film became dominant facility for 10Be measurement. 7Be ions are converted to 7Be4+ by stripper to eliminate interference of isobar (7Li) whatever using large or small AMS. Discussion The range absorber technique is used in cyclotron and large tandem accelerator, but tandem accelerator is more convenient than cyclotron. The degrader foil technique, which is the staple method for 10Be-AMS analyses in currently, is used in small tandem accelerator, such as Xi'an-AMS. Using the small AMS by Raisbeck and Yiou (1988), 7Be2+ was converted to 7Be4+ by a carbon foil stripper and achieved lower background (7Be/9Be〈 10-15), and obtained a ratio of 7Be/10Be. Conclusions Recently the degrader foil technique method has been successfully adapted on tandems with terminal voltage below 0.6 MV. However, the degrader method loses some efficiency and beam quality for loBe detection, which may lead t