Using photon activation analysis to determine concentrations of unknown components in reference materials

Abstract

Using certified multi-element reference materials for instrumental analyses one frequently is confronted with the embarrassing fact that the concentration of some desired elements are not given in the respective certificate, nonetheless are detectable, e.g. by photon activation analysis (PAA). However, these elements might be determinable with sufficient quality of the results using scaling parameters and the well-known quantities of a reference element within the reference material itself. Scaling parameters include: activation threshold energy, Giant Dipole Resonance (GDR) peak and endpoint energy of the bremsstrahlung continuum; integrated photo-nuclear cross sections for the isotopes of the reference element; bremsstrahlung continuum integral; target thickness; photon flux density. Photonuclear cross sections from the unreferenced elements must be known, too. With these quantities, the integral was obtained for both the known and unknown elements resulting in an inference of the concentration of the unreported element based upon the reported value, thus also the concentration of the unreferenced element in the reference material. A similar method to determine elements using the basic nuclear and experimental data has been developed for thermal neutron activation analysis some time ago (k0 Method). © 2011 American Institute of Physics.