4 results about "Accelerator mass spectrometry" patented technology

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is a form of mass spectrometry that accelerates ions to extraordinarily high kinetic energies before mass analysis. The special strength of AMS among the mass spectrometric methods is its power to separate a rare isotope from an abundant neighboring mass ("abundance sensitivity", e.g. C from ¹²C). The method suppresses molecular isobars completely and in many cases can separate atomic isobars (e.g. N from ¹⁴C) also. This makes possible the detection of naturally occurring, long-lived radio-isotopes such as ¹⁰Be, Cl, Al and ¹⁴C. Their typical isotopic abundance ranges from 10⁻¹² to 10⁻¹⁸. AMS can outperform the competing technique of decay counting for all isotopes where the half-life is long enough.