Advanced short-lived nuclide NAA with application in the life sciences

A new technique for short-lived nuclide activation analysis has been developed that compensates the rapid radioactive decay during the counting period by simultaneous approach of the sample holder to the detector with a mechanical device, permitting prolongation of the counting time and reduction of the required complementary cyclic activation to avoid sample container damage. The operation of the analytical system is automated by a programmable logic controller (PLC). This improvement of short-lived nuclide activation analysis, providing a high throughput, is important in biological and environmental research, where often a large number of samples has to be analyzed for sufficient sampling statistics.