Science. 1987 May 1;236(4801):543-50. doi: 10.1126/science.236.4801.543.
Particle accelerators, such as those built for research in nuclear physics, can also be used together with magnetic and electrostatic mass analyzers to measure rare isotopes at very low abundance ratios. All molecular ions can be eliminated when accelerated to energies of millions of electron volts. Some atomic isobars can be eliminated with the use of negative ions; others can be separated at high energies by measuring their rate of energy loss in a detector. The long-lived radioisotopes (10)Be, (14)C,(26)A1, 36Cl, and (129)1 can now be measured in small natural samples having isotopic abundances in the range 10(-12) to 10(- 5) and as few as 10(5) atoms. In the past few years, research applications of accelerator mass spectrometry have been concentrated in the earth sciences (climatology, cosmochemistry, environmental chemistry, geochronology, glaciology, hydrology, igneous petrogenesis, minerals exploration, sedimentology, and volcanology), in anthropology and archeology (radiocarbon dating), and in physics (searches for exotic particles and measurement of halflives). In addition, accelerator mass spectrometry may become an important tool for the materials and biological sciences.
粒子加速器，如用于核物理研究的加速器，也可以与磁和静电质量分析仪一起使用，以测量非常低丰度比的稀有同位素。当加速到数百万电子伏特的能量时，所有的分子离子都可以被消除。一些原子同量异位素可以通过使用负离子来消除；其他的可以通过测量它们在探测器中的能量损失率在高能下分离。现在可以在天然样品中测量长寿命放射性同位素（10）Be、（14）C、（26）Al、36Cl 和（129）I，这些样品的同位素丰度在 10（-12）到 10（-5）之间，原子数量少至 10（5）。在过去的几年中，加速器质谱在地球科学（气候学、宇宙化学、环境化学、地球年代学、冰川学、水文学、火成岩成因、矿物勘探、沉积学和火山学）、人类学和考古学（放射性碳年代测定）以及物理学（寻找奇异粒子和测量半衰期）中的研究应用得到了集中。此外，加速器质谱可能成为材料和生命科学的重要工具。
