Search for A=60 fragments from neutron-induced fission with accelerator mass spectrometry Original Research Article

The high sensitivity of the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) method has been utilized to measure the extremely low yields for super asymmetric neutron-induced fission of uranium. From a high level radioactive waste concentrate (HAWC) of the reprocessing plant WAK in Karlsruhe, Germany, iron has been chemically extracted and investigated by means of AMS for possible 60Fe from nuclear fission. The fission yield is masked due to the competing 60Fe production via double neutron capture on 58Fe. Therefore, only an upper limit for the A=60 fission chain yield of 1×10−8% could be determined. To estimate this branch, the cross section for the 59Fe(n, γ)60Fe reaction has been measured to (6.0±1.3) barn.