Sensitivity

  

Home
Method
Performance
Research
Analyses

The sensitivity of AMS to measure isotope ratios down to 10-15 arises from three parts. The first two are an essential part of the acceleration process in a Van de Graaff tandem accelerator:

  1. negative ions, which are produced in the ion source; elimination of isobars (14N, 26Al) occurs, as these do not form stable negative ions;

  2. multiply positive ions, which are produced in the stripper; elimination of molecular isobars occurs as these do no form multiply charged ions

  3. identification, which occurs in the detector; elimination of (remaining) background ions occurs.