The bioscience nuclear microscopy program at LLNL

Bench, G., Freeman, S. , Roberts, M. and Sideras-Haddad, E. (1997) The bioscience nuclear microscopy program at LLNL. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 130(1-4), pp. 419-425. (doi: 10.1016/S0168-583X(97)00235-8)

Abstract

Since initiation in mid 1994, a bioscience nuclear microscopy program at Livermore has enabled collaboration with bio-scientists on a variety of projects requiring quantitative elemental microanalysis. For microprobe analysis a combination of PIXE and STIM are typically used, respectively generating element distribution maps with micron scale spatial resolution, and projected densities and histological information with sub-micron spatial resolution. Current studies demonstrate the applicability of nuclear microscopy (particularly when combined with other analysis techniques) in environmental tracing, toxicology, carcinogenesis, and structural biology. The program currently uses ∼ 10 percent of the available time on a 10 MV tandem accelerator that is also applied to a variety of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry and other microprobe programs. The completion of a dedicated nuclear microprobe system, using a 5 SDH NEC 1.7 MV tandem accelerator and employing several energy dispersive X-ray detectors to improve X-ray counting rates, promises increased accelerator access, greater sample throughput and continued expansion of the program.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Freeman, Professor Stewart
• Authors: Bench, G., Freeman, S., Roberts, M., and Sideras-Haddad, E.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre
• Journal Name: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 0168-583X
• ISSN (Online): 1872-9584