Liquid Scintillation Counter Characterization, Optimization and Benzene Purity Correction
Author
McCormac, F. G.Issue Date
1992-01-01Keywords
optimizationmonitoring
hydrogen
tritium
aromatic hydrocarbons
benzene
hydrocarbons
organic compounds
methods
C 14
carbon
dates
isotopes
radioactive isotopes
absolute age
geochemistry
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
McCormac, F. G. (1992). Liquid scintillation counter characterization, optimization and benzene purity correction. Radiocarbon, 34(1), 37-45.Journal
RadiocarbonAdditional Links
http://radiocarbon.webhost.uits.arizona.edu/Abstract
In liquid scintillation counting (LSC), small variations in benzene purity can cause 14C pulse-height spectra to move with respect to the counting window. Thus, one must carefully monitor the purity of each benzene sample and apply corrections for spectral shifts. I describe here the techniques used at Queen's University Belfast for deriving correction factors for observed small variations in benzene purity. I also describe the methods used at our laboratory to fine-tune our Quantulus LS counters for high-precision dating. The tuning of the instruments minimizes the effect of fluctuations in gain that may occur during the long counting periods required for high-precision dating. Any remaining influences on efficiency owing to gain changes are corrected for, along with the purity correction, by continuous monitoring of the spectrum produced by the external source.Type
Articletext
Language
enISSN
0033-8222ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1017/S0033822200013400