Precise mass measurements of Cf252 fission fragments with the Canadian penning trap mass spectrometer (CPTMS)

Abstract

The Canadian Penning Trap Mass Spectrometer (CPTMS) located at the ATLAS (Argonne Tandem Linear Accelerator System) facility of Argonne National Laboratory makes precise mass measurements on both stable and unstable isotopes. A 252Cf fission source has been used as the ion source for the unstable isotope mass measurements. This thesis concentrates on the mass measurements of the fission fragments from the 252Cf fission source using the CPTMS system. It is the first time that the masses of such fission fragments have been measured with a mass spectrometer. The masses of 108Tc, 108Ru, 109Ru and 110Ru have been measured to a precision of 10-7. The results have been compared to exiting mass measurements and the Atomic Mass Evaluation (AME2003). In general good agreement between this work and existing data is realized. A few discrepancies are identified.