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Optical Detection of Radiocarbon Dioxide: First Results and AMS Intercomparison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2016

I Galli
Affiliation:
Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (INO) – CNR, European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Via Carrara 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino FI, Italy
S Bartalini
Affiliation:
Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (INO) – CNR, European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Via Carrara 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino FI, Italy
P Cancio
Affiliation:
Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (INO) – CNR, European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Via Carrara 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino FI, Italy
P De Natale
Affiliation:
Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (INO) – CNR, European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Via Carrara 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino FI, Italy
D Mazzotti*
Affiliation:
Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (INO) – CNR, European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Via Carrara 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino FI, Italy
G Giusfredi
Affiliation:
Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (INO) – CNR, European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Via Carrara 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino FI, Italy
M E Fedi
Affiliation:
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) – Sez. Firenze, Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Via Sansone 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino FI, Italy
P A Mandò
Affiliation:
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) – Sez. Firenze, Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Via Sansone 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino FI, Italy
*
2Corresponding author: davide.mazzotti@ino.it.

Abstract

The first results of an optical method for measuring radiocarbon concentrations, based on mid-infrared laser spectroscopy of a carbon dioxide gas sample, are presented with the theoretical bases explained in detail. The first measurements on modern and highly enriched samples show the extreme linearity of this technique over more than 5 decades. An intercomparison with accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is performed both for modern and 14C-dead samples, assessing the almost perfect agreement of their respectively measured concentration values. The main features of our technique are compared with liquid scintillation counting (LSC) and AMS, and future developments of the current setup are discussed.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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