Floorplan of the second cellar with th e6 MV accelerator system, taken from "CologneAMS, a dedicated center for accelerator mass spectrometry in Germany", Dewald et al. (2013) .
Setup
The 6 MV tandetron accelerator system was designed in build by High Voltage Engineering Europe B. V., Amersfoort, Netherlands. The machine was set up and tested completly in Amersfoort prior to the transport to Cologne
The accelerator mass spectrometer was designed for the measurement of cosmogenic nuclides like 10Be, 14C, 26Al, 36Cl, 41Ca und 129I as well as heavy nuclides like 239Pu and 244Pu.
The accelerator system contains two identical ion sources (SO110) which each allows loading up to 200 samples. While the first source is dedicated to the measurement of solid samples, the second source is connect to a gas handling system and is dedicated to CO2 measurements.
After being accelerated from the source the ion passes a 54° electrostatic analyzer (ESA) and a 90° magnet for the low energy mass separation. By passing a stripping process in the accelerator ( by foil or gas) the molecules are destroyed. Therefore the 6 MB Tandetron is the central element of the whole system.
The ions are afterwards again mass selected by use of an further 90° magnet and electrostatic analyzers. The stable isotope current is measured in offset Faraday cups behin the 90° magnet while the rare isotope is identified and counted in the detector system.