Abstract (eng)
The dominant application of anions in Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) necessitates the generation of a stable and intense anion beam on the basis of an efficient usage of the sample material. Generally, fluoride anions have shown to provide high ion currents and a considerable ability to suppress interfering isobars in a number of experiments (Zhao et al 2010). However, the overall fluoride ion formation efficiency needs to be determined to assess their applicability. Therefore, the objective of the study is an examination of factors that exert influence on the ionisation efficiency as well as the beam intensity of hafnium, caesium as well as uranium fluoride anions in a Middleton type Sputter Ion Source.
The first part of the thesis investigates the influence of target composition as well as manner of sputtering on HfF5– ion formation. It was revealed that sample materials consist-ing of HfF4, PbF2 and Ag, especially in the case of high PbF2 proportion, not only generat-ed a larger current, but also provided a higher ionisation efficiency of HfF5– than sample materials containing HfF4 and Ag alone. Furthermore, targets that were sputtered in a con-tinuous manner yielded ionisation efficiencies around 15% higher than targets that were sputtered for 10 min time spans in a consecutive manner. The highest HfF5– ionisation effi-ciency was 5.9%, achieved by continuous sputtering of a HfF4, PbF2 and Ag mixture with a mass ratio of 1:3:1.
The ion of interest in the second part of the thesis is CsF2–. Here, two fluorine donor materials (PbF2 and LaF3) in two different proportions were examined in their effectiveness. It was shown that PbF2 yields stronger formation of CsF2– than LaF3. Further, a Cs:F atom ratio of 1:3, when using PbF2 as fluorine donor, suffices for a typical current of 40 - 100 nA and a maximum ionisation efficiency of around 0.08%.
The third part focuses on the formation of UO– as well as UF5– ions in relation to different sample matrices, source parameter and target holder material. Adding Fe to a mix-ture of U3O8 and Fe2O3 improves the UO– beam intensity as well as the ionisation efficien-cy. Under appropriate conditions of the ion source, U3O8 and Fe2O3 mixture added with Fe to a mass ratio of 1:2 yielded a typical UO– current of 5-9 nA and a maximum ionisation efficiency of around 2.9%. Using gold and copper target holder inserts for UF4 and PbF2 mixtures with a mass ratio of 1:9 yielded a typical UF5– current around 10 nA and a maxi-mal ionisation efficiency of 3.5%.