DEVELOPMENT OF SPUTTER-INITIATED RESONANCE IONIZATION SPECTROSCOPY FOR APPLICATION IN THE SINGLE-ATOM DETECTION OF TECHNETIUM

WE PROPOSE THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUE, SPUTTER-INITIATED RESONANCE IONIZATION SPECTROSCOPY (SIRIS) FOR THE SINGLE-ATOM DETECTION OF ISOTOPES OF TECHNETIUM. THIS TECHNIQUE IS TO BE USED IN A STUDY RECENTLY PROPOSED BY G.A. COWAN AND W.C. HAXTON TO DETERMINE THE BORON-8 COMPONENT OF THE SOLAR NEUTRINO FLUX. IN SIRIS, AN ARGON ION BEAM SPUTTERS A SMALL QUANTITY OF SOLID SAMPLE INTO THE GAS PHASE. A LASER THEN SELECTIVELY (AND EFFICIENTLY) IONIZES ATOMS OF A PARTICULAR ELEMENT, USING RESONANCE IONIZATION SPECTROSCOPY (RIS). RESULTING IONS ARE ANALYZED IN A MAGNETIC MASS SPECTROMETER, THUS ADDING ISOTOPIC SELECTIVITY TO THE ELEMENTAL SELECTIVITY PROVIDED BY RIS. IN PHASE I OF THE PROPOSED PROJECT, WE WOULD DEMONSTRATE THESENSITIVITY OF SIRIS FOR THE DETECTION OF TC-97, TC-98 AND TC-99 AND PERFORM PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS TO DETERMINE THE DEGREE OF INTERFERENCE WHICH MIGHT BE EXPECTED FROM MOLYBDENUM IN REAL ANALYSES.