PROGRESS ON THE HVEE C-14 ISOTOPE RATIO MASS-SPECTROMETER FOR BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS

During the last two decades Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) has al lowed major developments in many areas of geoscience and archaeology. It is projected that in the near future a similar potential for AMS is likely in the field of biomedical research leading, ultimately, to cl inical applications. For such applications, the required instrumentati on differs significantly from that presently used in the field of C-14 dating. While the accuracy and sensitivity needed are more than an or der of magnitude less demanding than that for present stale-of-the-art C-14 analysis, the availability of AMS spectrometers that are small, simple to operate and that are capable to handle CO2 samples is condit ional upon a widespread acceptance of C-14 AMS in biomedical research. In order to satisfy these demands, HVEE has developed a compact C-14 AMS spectrometer dedicated to biomedical research. The instrument cons ists of a compact accelerator with a footprint of 2.25 x 1.25 m and an ion source that features direct CO2 acceptance and optimal user frien dliness. The layout and the design of the accelerator was presented el sewhere [D.J.W. Mous, K.H. Purser, W. Fokker, R. van den Broek, R.B. K oopmans, Nucl. Instr. and Meth. B 123 (1997) 159]. In this contributio n, we discuss the progress on the accelerator. Furthermore, the design and first results of the CO2 ion source are presented. (C) 1998 Elsev ier Science B.V.