Systematic investigations of 14C measurements at the Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator

Abstract

A newly operating accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) facility such as VERA has to go through an extensive testing phase in order to establish optimal conditions for 14C measurements, especially in the field of archaeological samples where an overall precision of 0.5% is desirable. We discuss the results of our measurements at the milligram carbon level as they relate to long-term stability, reproducibility, precision and isotope fractionation.