Accelerator mass spectrometry

The first full-scale research of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) began in 1977, and by the rapid advance thereafter, at present AMS measurement is carried out in more than 30 facilities in the world. The progress of AMS during this period can be known by the proceedings of the international conference held once every three years. In this report, by summarizing the reports published from 1988 to 1990, the state of development on the analysis techniques by AMS and its application is outlined. The application of AMS is very much diversified, but those related to nuclear physics and elementary particle physics were excluded. AMS is a kind of ultramicro analysis in which sample elements are ionized and accelerated up to a certain energy of more than MeV per nucleon, and the kind of ions and energy are distinguished and counted. By AMS, the practically background-free detection is feasible. The measuring system is composed of an ion source, an incident system electromagnet, an accelerator, a high energy part electromagnet, an energy filter and a detector. Those main components are described. The elements which have been measured, the sensitivity and accuracy and the application are reported. (K.I.) 63 refs