The potential of He stripping in heavy ion AMS

The use of helium as a stripper gas for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) measurements of heavy ions is presented. At ion stripping energies of about 500 keV and below we observe a significant increase of the mean charge state when using helium instead of other gases. Moreover, scattering losses are reduced with helium because of its lower mass compared to other commonly used stripper gases. Thus, highly efficient AMS measurements for Ca-41, I-129 and U-236 with transmissions through the accelerator in the range of 40-50% are now possible. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.