He stripping for AMS of 236U and other actinides using a 3 MV tandem accelerator

Interest in the long-lived radioisotope 236U (t1/2 = 23.4 million years) has significantly increased recently, due to the emergence of environmental and earth science applications. Presently, only a few (AMS) accelerator mass spectrometry instruments are suited for this measurement. One major limitation is the relatively low total detection efficiency (on the order of 10^4), which is partly caused by a low stripping yield of the positive ion charge state selected after the tandem accelerator. It has been shown that high yield can be achieved using helium as stripper gas for uranium ion energies below 0.35 MeV. Here we investigate the potential of He stripping of U at the 3-MV tandem accelerator VERA. Phenomenological charge state distributions for U and Th are presented for terminal voltages from 1.0 to 1.7 MV. These terminal voltages provide better background rejection than possible below 1 MeV, and are suited to the widely used 1–3 MV workhorses of many accelerator mass spectrometry laboratories. The methods can be applied to other actinides also.