16O DIGME of high Tc materials

Measurements have been performed of the repeatability of the yield of the 871 keV gamma ray from the 16O(d, p)17O* reaction induced by a 1.8 MeV deuterium beam incident on Y1Ba2Cu3O7-δ. It is shown that the yield is stable to 0.2% (±1σ) for deuteron fluences up to 298 μC/mm2, and that current integration contributes less than 0.3% random error to the yield measurements. The contribution to current integration of molecular hydrogen contamination of the deuteron beam is shown to be less than 0.15%. Yields from different points on the same sample show variations which suggest that this material is not sufficiently stable in the long term to be used as a reference material for the precision DIGME method of oxygen determination in high Tc superconductors. (orig.)