A section of the accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) in the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit for determination of the dates of samples of organic material. In the foreground is a beam-bending magnet incorporating the recombinator section,which uses Faraday cups (operated by the vertical rods) to help separate the beams of ionised carbon-12,13 and 14. Because carbon contains only 1 atom of the carbon-14 isotope in 1,000,000,000,000 of the more stable carbon-12 and carbon-13,most of the carbon-12 atoms are discarded and the streams of ions are directed and accelerated along the machine which converts the negatively charged ions to a positive charge and uses other filters to allow the only carbon-14 ions to be counted by a detector at the end of the accelerator | |
Lizenzart: | Lizenzpflichtig |
Credit: | Science Photo Library / King-Holmes, James |
Bildgröße: | 4613 px × 3789 px |
Modell-Rechte: | vorhanden |
Eigentums-Rechte: | nicht erforderlich |
Restrictions: | - |