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Radiocarbon Dating at the University of Washington. II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

A. W. Fairhall
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
W. R. Schell
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
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The radiocarbon dating equipment previously used (Dorn, Fairhall, Schell and Takashima, 1962) has been moved to a different location. During the resulting hiatus in our dating program we have constructed a new counter with a few novel features. It is similar in concept to the Houtermans-Oeschger counter (Houtermans and Oeschger, 1958), but two changes have been made in the design: (1) The inner counter, constructed of thin, metallized plastic foil of thickness 4.2 mg/cm2, is leak-tight relative to the outer counter. By means of two solenoid valves actuated by a simple differential mercury manometer the outer and inner counters can be filled separately with a pressure differential on the partition of less than 0.5 cm Hg. Thus all of the sample can be introduced into the inner counter while inert gas is fed into the outer counter. As the sample gas is not needed for anti-coincidence filling efficiency increases ca. 30%; (2) The metallic parts are made of commercially available high-purity nickel which is easier to procure than O.F.H.C. copper; nylon is used for the other parts. The outer counter appears to have a very low radioactivity, its α activity being 5 pulses/hr/100 cm2.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The American Journal of Science 

References

DeVoe, J. R., 1961, Radioactive contamination of materials used in scientific research: [U.S.] Natl. Acad. Sci.—Natl. Research Council, Pub. 895, 15 p.Google Scholar
Dorn, T. F., Fairhall, A. W., Schell, W. R., and Takashima, Y., 1962, Radiocarbon dating at the University of Washington I: Radiocarbon, v. 4, p. 112.Google Scholar
Houtermans, F. G., and Oeschger, H., 1958, Proportional counter for measurement of weak activities from soft beta radiation: Helv. Phys. Acta., v. 31, p. 117126.Google Scholar