Isotopic enrichment of Zn particles by laser ablation

FELIX POZZI, MARCELO N.; GUIDALI, GONZALO; FERNÁNDEZ, MAURICIO; ZUBILLAGA, ERICA; RINALDI, CARLOS A.

APPLIED PHYSICS. A - MATERIALS SCIENCE AND PROCESSING

SPRINGER

Año: 2017 vol. 123

0947-8396

The use of Zn in nuclear reactors reduces the amount of 60Co generated as a consequence of the natural activation of Co. On the other hand, isotopically enriched Zn can be used as a tracer in biological systems. At the present, the enrichment of Zn is obtained using gaseous compounds of the metal by centrifugal force. In this paper, we present a method based on laser ablation of metallic targets of Zn with a Nd–YAG nanosecond laser to produce isotopically enriched Zn particles. Also, the effect of the wavelength irradiation laser on the enrichment factor was studied and a procedure is proposed to collect the different enrichment fractions yield.