Advances in Atom Trap Trace Analysis
Dr. Peter Mueller
Argonne National Lab
Atom Trap Trace Analysis (ATTA) is a highly selective and sensitive atom counting technique based on laser cooling and trapping. It has now been established as a routine tool in the geosciences for radiokrypton dating of ancient groundwater and glacial ice samples on timescales of a few ten thousand to a couple million years. The isotope of interest here is the cosmogenic krypton-81 with its half-life of 230,000 years and its isotopic abundance at the parts-per-trillion level in the atmosphere. In this talk, I will introduce the basic principles of the ATTA technique and its recent advances along selected applications with their impact on understanding groundwater resources and paleoclimatic changes.
Originally published at physics.nd.edu.