Development of a non-destructive carbon quantification method in iron by negative muon lifetime measurement

負ミュオン寿命測定に基づく鉄中炭素の定量分析法の開発

二宮 和彦*; 久保 謙哉*; 稲垣 誠*; 吉田 剛*; 竹下 聡史*; 反保 元伸*; 下村 浩一郎*; 河村 成肇*; Strasser, P.*; 三宅 康博*; 伊藤 孝   ; 髭本 亘  ; 齋藤 努*

Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Kubo, Kenya*; Inagaki, Makoto*; Yoshida, Go*; Takeshita, Soshi*; Tampo, Motonobu*; Shimomura, Koichiro*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Strasser, P.*; Miyake, Yasuhiro*; Ito, Takashi; Higemoto, Wataru; Saito, Tsutomu*

A novel nondestructive light element analysis method for bulk materials using muon beams was demonstrated. This method is based on the lifetime measurement of muons in a material and performed by measuring muon-decay electrons and identifying elements using the atomic number based on muon lifetimes. Muon irradiation on pure iron and two steel samples with known carbon contents was conducted to prepare a calibration curve for the quantitative analysis. We also performed a muon lifetime measurement for a Japanese sword and successfully determined its carbon content as 0.51 wt% using the calibration curve, without sample destruction.