Irvine : UCI Scientists to Help on New Spectrometer
Scientists from UC Irvine will take part in building a sophisticated scientific machine that can analyze minute particles, making it useful in dating archeological artifacts and studying pollutants.
The University of California Board of Regents last week approved construction of the accelerator mass spectrometer. It will be housed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, and its work will be a project of UC professors from the Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego campuses.
Regents allocated $250,000 to launch the facility.
UC officials said the accelerator mass spectrometer will be the first of its kind in California and the third in the nation. It functions by accelerating particles, then analyzing them in a magnetic field by sorting and counting isotopes.
According to Jonathon Ericson, associate professor of social ecology at UC Irvine and a member of the steering committee for the new machine, the equipment will be more accurate and able to date archeological finds better than other radiocarbon dating techniques.
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