A new 7 Be AMS capability established at CAMS and the potential for large datasets

Abstract We have developed a 7 Be measurement capability at the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (CAMS) at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. This capability is tested with dilutions of a commercial 7 Be tracer, a new 7 Be reference material produced at CAMS (which we verify to be free of 10 Be), and with experimental targets from a variety of sample matrices. Our results indicate that 7 Be can be measured at high precision for low activities (∼1% for 0.1 Bq; ∼10% for 0.001 Bq), with an estimated detection limit of ∼0.0001 Bq ( 7 Be/ 9 Be of ∼7 × 10 −17 ; equivalent to ∼10 3  atoms)—more than two orders of magnitude lower than that typical of counting techniques. Furthermore, because 10 Be and 7 Be sample preparation are identical, both isotopes can be measured on the same target with no additional laboratory preparation.