Development of a functionalized surface for alpha-particle detectors for use in liquid phase

Otani, Ryo; Sato, Tetsuya   ; Takeuchi, Erina; Miyachi, Yuta*; Natori, Hina*; Honda, Maki   ; Nagame, Yuichiro* 

For measuring -emitting nuclides directly in solution, avoiding the pretreatment required by conventional spectrometry, LSC, or ICP-MS, we have developed a novel -particle detector with a functionalized surface enabling selective absorption of elements of interest. As a model experiment, titanium plates were sputter-coated with gold and functionalized with self-assembled monolayers SAMs of sodium 11-mercaptoundecane-1-sulfonate, whose terminal -SO groups act as strong cation-exchange sites. After conditioning in 1 M HNO, the modified surfaces selectively adsorbed Zr and Y from HCl media, exhibiting adsorption behavior consistent with literature ion-exchange data. These results demonstrate that a detector with the SAM surface provides promisingly fast and high-resolution -particle detection in time-limited radiochemical analyses.