Nuclear microprobe

The basis of the nuclear microprobe (NMP) is a source of energetic ions from a particle accelerator. These... 

The first nuclear microbeam with a spatial resolution of 1 pm was built by Watt et al. (1981), and the first sub-micron instrument was built by Grime et al. (1987). Khodja et al. (2001) have published a description of the nuclear microprobe at the Pierre Sue Laboratory in France, which is a national facility dedicated to microbeam analysis. Its unique facility is that it is capable of analysing radioactive samples by means of a dedicated beamline. Figure 4.1 shows a schematic diagram of the apparatus. 

Figure 4.1. Schematic diagram of the Pierre Sue nuclear microprobe (Khodja et al. 2001).

Breese, M.B.H., Jamieson, D.N. King, P.J.C. (1996) Materials Analysis Using a Nuclear Microprobe, John Wiley Sons, Inc, New York. 

Swann, C. P. (1997). Recent applications of nuclear microprobes to the study of art objects and archaeological artifacts. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 130 289-296. 

Ryan, C.G. 2000. Quantitative trace element imaging using PIXE and the nuclear microprobe. International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology, 11, 219-230. 

See the proceedings of the following International Conferences appeared in special issues of Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 2002, 193, Proc. of the 19th Intern. Conf. on Atomic Collisions in Solids Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 2002,190, Proc. of the I5th Intern. Conf. on Ion Beam Analysis Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 2001, 175-177, Proc. of the 12th Intern. Conf. on Ion Beam Modification of Materials Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 2001,18I, Proc. of the 7th Intern. Conf. on Nuclear Microprobe Technology and Applications. 

Llabador, Y. Moretto, P. Applications of Nuclear Microprobes in the Life Sciences—An Efficient Analytical Technique for Research in Biology and Medicine, World Scientific Singapore, 1998. Cookson, J.A. Ferguson, A.T.G. Pilling, F. J. Radioanal. Chem. 1972,12, 39. 

Figure 3 View of the external nuclear microprobe beam line of the AGLAE accelerator.

Moretto, R, Nuclear microprobe a microanalytical technique in biology, Cell. Mol. Biol. (Noisy-le-grand) 42, 1, 1996. 

Michelet, C. and Moretto, P., Applications of Nuclear Microprobes in the Life Sciences, World Scientific Publisher, Singapore, 1999. 

Kristiansson, P. et al., Photon-tagged nuclear reaction analysis — evaluation of the technique for a nuclear microprobe, Nucl. Instr. Meth. B, 136-138, 362, 1998. 

Megaelectron volt (MeV) ion beam techniques offer a number of non-destructive analysis methods that allow to measure depth profiles of elemental concentrations in material surfaces. Elements are identified by elastic scattering, by specific nuclear reaction products or by emission of characteristic X-rays. With nuclear microprobes raster images of the material composition at the surface can be obtained. Particle-induced gamma-ray emission (PIGE) is especially suited for fluorine detection down to the ppm concentration level. 

G. Demortier, Analysis of light elements with a nuclear microprobe - a review, Nucl. Instr. Meth. B104 (1995) 244-254. 

G.E. Coote, R.J. Sparks, P. Blattner, Nuclear microprobe measurement of fluorine concentration profiles, with application in archaeology and geology, Nucl. Instr. Meth. 197 (1982) 213-221. 

G.E. Coote, I.C. Vickridge, Application of a nuclear microprobe to the study of calcified tissues, Nucl. Instr. Meth. B30 (1988) 393-397. 

D.N. Jamieson, B. Rout, R. Szymanski, P. Spizzirri, A. Sakellariou, W. Belcher, C.G. Ryan, The new Melbourne nuclear microprobe system, Nucl. Instr. Meth. B190 (2002) 54-59. 

N. Boscher-Barre, P. Trocellier, Nuclear microprobe study of a woman s skeleton from the sixth century, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 73 (1993) 413-416. 

Ryan, C.G., van Achterbergh, E., Yeats, C.J., Win, T.T., and Cripps, G. (2002) Quantitative PIXE trace element imaging of minerals using the new CSIRO-GEMOC nuclear microprobe. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. B. 189, 400-407. 

Ryan C G 1995 The nuclear microprobe as a probe of earth structure and geological processes Nud. Instrum. Methods B 104 69... 

Breese M B H, Jamieson D N and King P J C 1996 Materials Analysis with a Nuclear Microprobe (New York ... 

Jamieson D N 1998 Structural and electrical characterization of semiconductor materials using a nuclear microprobe Nucl. Instrum. Methods B 136-138 1... 

Some relevant terms for activation analysis are activation analysis, neutron activation analysis (NAA), instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), neutron activation analysis with radiochemical separation (RNAA), photon activation, neutron capture prompt gamma activation analysis (PGAA), charged particle activation, autoradiography, liquid scintillation counting, nuclear microprobe analysis, radiocarbon (and other element) dating, radioimmunoassay, nuclear track technique, other nuclear and radiochemical methods. Briefly, the salient features of some of the more popular techniques are as follows ... 

---