Abstract
The Moon provides a unique environment for investigating nearby astrophysical events such as supernovae. Lunar samples retain valuable information from these events, via detectable long-lived “fingerprint” radionuclides such as \({}^{60} \hbox{Fe}\). In this work, we stepped up the development of an accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) method for detecting \({}^{60} \hbox{Fe}\) using the HI-13 tandem accelerator at the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE). Since interferences could not be sufficiently removed solely with the existing magnetic systems of the tandem accelerator and the following Q3D magnetic spectrograph, a Wien filter with a maximum voltage of \(\pm\,60\,\text {kV}\) and a maximum magnetic field of 0.3 T was installed after the accelerator magnetic systems to lower the detection background for the low abundance nuclide \({}^{60} \hbox{Fe}\). A \(1\,\upmu \text {m}\) thick Si\(_{3}\)N\(_{4}\) foil was installed in front of the Q3D as an energy degrader. For particle detection, a multi-anode gas ionization chamber was mounted at the center of the focal plane of the spectrograph. Finally, an \({}^{60} \hbox{Fe}\) sample with an abundance of \(1.125 \times 10^{-10}\) was used to test the new AMS system. These results indicate that \({}^{60} \hbox{Fe}\) can be clearly distinguished from the isobar \({}^{60} \hbox{Ni}\). The sensitivity was assessed to be better than \(4.3 \times 10^{-14}\) based on blank sample measurements lasting \(5.8\) h, and the sensitivity could, in principle, be expected to be approximately \(2.5 \times 10^{-15}\) when the data were accumulated for 100 h, which is feasible for future lunar sample measurements because the main contaminants were sufficiently separated.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Science Data Bank at https://cstr.cn/31253.11.sciencedb.j00186.00511 and https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.j00186.00511.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the staff of the HI-13 tandem accelerator for smooth operation of the machine.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Yong-Shou Chen, Wei-Ping Liu, Bing Guo, Sheng-Quan Yan, Yun-Ju Li, You-Bao Wang, Zhi-Hong Li, Yang-Ping Shen and Ming He contributed to the conceptualization and methodology. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Yang Zhang, Sheng-Quan Yan, Ming He, Qing-Zhang Zhao, Wen-Hui Zhang, Chao-Xin Kan, Jian-Ming Zhou, Kang-Ning Li, Xiao-Fei Wang, Jian-Cheng Liu, Zhao-Hua Peng, Zhuo Liang, Ai-Ling Li, Jian Zheng, Qi-Wen Fan, Ding Nan, Wei Nan, Yu-Qiang Zhang, Jia-Ying-Hao Li, Jun-Wen Tian, Jiang-Lin Hou, Chang-Xin Guo, Zhi-Cheng Zhang, Ming-Hao Zhu, Yu-Wen Chen, Yu-Chen Jiang, Tao Tian, Jin-Long Ma, Yi-Hui Liu, Jing-Yu Dong, Run-Long Liu and Mei-Yue-Nan Ma. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Yang Zhang and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 12125509, 12222514, 11961141003, and 12005304), National Key Research and Development Project (No. 2022YFA1602301), CAST Young Talent Support Plan, the CNNC Science Fund for Talented Young Scholars Continuous support for basic scientific research projects.
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Zhang, Y., Yan, SQ., He, M. et al. Stepped-up development of accelerator mass spectrometry method for the detection of 60Fe with the HI-13 tandem accelerator. NUCL SCI TECH 35, 77 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-024-01453-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-024-01453-x