Absolute hydrogen depth profiling using the resonant $^{1}$H($^{15}$N,$\alpha\gamma$)$^{12}$C nuclear reaction
Abstract
Resonant nuclear reactions are a powerful tool for the determination of the amount and profile of hydrogen in thin layers of material. Usually, this tool requires the use of a standard of well-known composition. The present work, by contrast, deals with standard-less hydrogen depth profiling. This approach requires precise nuclear data, e.g. on the widely used H(N,)C reaction, resonant at 6.4\,MeV N beam energy. Here, the strongly anisotropic angular distribution of the emitted -rays from this resonance has been re-measured, resolving a previous discrepancy. Coefficients of (0.380.04) and (0.800.04) have been deduced for the second and fourth order Legendre polynomials, respectively. In addition, the resonance strength has been re-evaluated to (25.01.5)\,eV, 10\% higher than previously reported. A simple working formula for the hydrogen concentration is given for cases with known -ray detection efficiency. Finally, the absolute approach is illustrated using two examples.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1605.02526,
title = {Absolute hydrogen depth profiling using the resonant $^{1}$H($^{15}$N,$\alpha\gamma$)$^{12}$C nuclear reaction},
author = {Tobias P. Reinhardt and Shavkat Akhmadaliev and Daniel Bemmerer and Klaus Stöckel and Louis Wagner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.02526},
year = {2016}
}