Verification of a uranium micromass standard using the Eindhoven Scanning Microprobe

Analysis of dust samples from uranium enrichment facilities is focused on the detection and analysis of uranium-containing particles. A chemical and isotopic analysis of individual particles from dust samples is thought to be an effective analytical tool to check the absence of nuclear-weapon production activities. The used different analytical techniques from individual laboratories have to be verified with respect to their uncertainties and limits of detection. This requires a well-characterized uranium micromass standard, composed of particles with a narrow spread in the uranium mass distribution. In this work the relative uranium mass distribution is determined of a set of U3O8 micro particles. The measured set of particles is monodisperse with a standard deviation of the relative uranium mass distribution of 16%