Feasibility study of cyclic charged particle activation analysis

The purpose of this research was to enlarge the applicability of CPAA with reactions leading to short-lived radionuclides (0.1 s<T1/2<100 s). Therefore a set-up for cyclic charged particle activation analysis was designed and built for the isochronous cyclotron of the University Gent (Belgium). In order to increase the sensitivity for the determination of short-lived radionuclides, an on-line set-up (comparable to a PIXE or a PIGE set-up) was used. Also a systematic study of the experimental determination of the sensitivity and interferences of the method for some 28 elements was made. Due to some problems (neutron damage of the detector, high γ radiation background due to neutron-induced reactions in the detector and surrounding material, and unfavourable physical constants such as low cross sections), the number of analyzed elements was rather limited and/or the sensitivity obtained was low.