Abstract
Atom trap trace analysis, a laser-based atom counting method, has been applied to analyze atmospheric (), a cosmogenic isotope with an isotopic abundance of . In addition to the superior selectivity demonstrated in this work, the counting rate and efficiency of atom trap trace analysis have been improved by 2 orders of magnitude over prior results. The significant applications of this new analytical capability lie in radioisotope dating of ice and water samples and in the development of dark matter detectors.
- Received 13 December 2010
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.103001
© 2011 American Physical Society
Synopsis
Clocking the last century
Published 9 March 2011
Atom trap analysis has reached new sensitivity limits in measuring the abundance of argon-39, a desirable isotope for dating environmental samples on the time scale of a few hundred years.
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