Accelerator mass spectrometry

Any heavy ion accelerator which is equipped with a momentum selection device like the analyzing magnet etc. may be used as a mass spectrometer. The difference between the normal mass spectrometer and the accelerator type is only that the latter uses an acceleration which is several orders of magnitude higher than that for the normal accelerator. In the accelerator mass spectrometry, the whole accelerator system is used as a highly sensitive mass spectrometer and gives us the opportunities to measure previously unthinkable small isotopic abundances. This new field of accelerator mass spectrometry is surveyed, and the following are discussed: the 36Cl detection in Munich with the Tandem-post accelerator system and the test experiments to use the UNILAC in G.S.I., Darmstadt, for accelerator mass spectrometry. (Mori, K.)