A NEW utilization of¹¹B ion beams: Hydrogen analysis by¹H¹¹B,α)α α nuclear reaction

Abstract

Abstract The study of the α particles emitted by the nuclear reaction 1H (11B, α)αα near the resonance of 1793 keV has been used to analyse hydrogen in solids. This work shows that it is possible to detect surface layers less than ≃5.1013 atoms hydrogen/cm2 and that the profiie of implanted hydrogen can be determined to a depth of 4000 A with a depth resolution about 400 A. An advantage of this method consists in the use of standard low energy accelerator (∼2 MeV). Comparisons with other nuclear methods are made and several applications are suggested.