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A Minivial for Small-Sample 14C Dating

Lauri Kaihola, Hannu Kojola, Aarne Heinonen

Abstract


We have designed a 0.3-m1 Teflon minivial for 14C dating of small samples in a liquid scintillation counter. We use a special adapter of standard vial size to optimize the position of the vial with respect to the phototubes and to
intercept the light path between them, thus reducing optical cross-talk. Better performance can be achieved by using
customized vials than by diluting small samples for counting in large vials. We have achieved counting efficiencies up to 80% in 0.3-ml vials typically with 0.05 cpm background.

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