Quantification of 60Fe atoms by MC-ICP-MS for the redetermination of the half-life

In many scientific fields, the half-life of radionuclides plays an important role. The accurate knowledge of this parameter has direct impact on, e.g., age determination of archeological artifacts and of the elemental synthesis in the universe. In order to derive the half-life of a long-lived radionuclide, the activity and the absolute number of atoms have to be analyzed. Whereas conventional radiation measurement methods are typically applied for activity determinations, the latter can be determined with high accuracy by mass spectrometric techniques. Over the past years, the half-lives of several radionuclides have been specified by means of multiple-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) complementary to the earlier reported values mainly derived by accelerator mass spectrometry. The present paper discusses all critical aspects (amount of material, radiochemical sample preparation, interference correction, isotope dilution mass spectrometry, calculation of measurement uncertainty) for a precise analysis of the number of atoms by MC-ICP-MS exemplified for the recently published half-life determination of 60Fe (Rugel et al, Phys Rev Lett 103:072502, 2009).