The Keck Carbon Cycle AMS Laboratory, U.C.I.: Initial operation and a background surprise

Author(s): Southon, John R; Santos, Guaciara M; Druffel-Rodriguez, K C; Druffel, Ellen R. M; Trumbore, Susan E; Xu, Xiaomei; Griffin, Sheila; Ali, S; Mazon, M | Abstract: A new 14C accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) laboratory for carbon cycle studies has been established at the University of California, Irvine. The 0.5 MV AMS system was installed in mid-2002 and has operated routinely sinceOctober of that year. This paper briefly describes the spectrometer and summarizes lessons learned during the first year of operation. In the process of setting up the system, we identified and largely suppressed a previously unreported radiocarbonAMS background: charge exchange tails from 14N beams derived from nitrogen-containing molecular ions produced near the entrance of the accelerator.