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Brigham Young University

Astrophysics and Astronomy

2003

External-beam

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Multienergetic External-Beam Pixe As A Means Of Stydying The Surface Enrichment Effect In Coins, Scott Evans Perry Jul 2003

Multienergetic External-Beam Pixe As A Means Of Stydying The Surface Enrichment Effect In Coins, Scott Evans Perry

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis paper examines the feasibility of using external-beam PIXE to study the surface enrichment effect in metal artifacts. By varying the energy of the incident proton beam, we penetrated the artifact's surface to different levels and were able to produce a depth profile of the elemental composition of the sample. In this study, the sample set we chose to examine consisted of ancient and modern coins. This paper first describes the surface enrichment effect and theoretically how PIXE can be used to study it. It then details the construction of the components of the external-beam setup. Many of the …