A scientists works with an ATTA arrange at Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois, which first developed the approach.
| Photo Credit: Argonne National Laboratory
Since its invention in 1947, carbon dating has revolutionised many fields of science by permitting scientists to estimate the age of an natural materials primarily based on how a lot carbon-14 it incorporates. However, carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,700 years, so the approach can’t decide the age of objects older than round 50,000 years.
In 1979, scientists prompt utilizing calcium-41, with a half-life of 99,400 years, as an alternative. It’s produced when cosmic rays from house smash into calcium atoms within the soil, and is discovered within the earth’s crust, opening the door to dating fossilised bones and rock. But a number of issues should be overcome earlier than it may be used to reliably date objects.
One necessary development was reported in Nature Physicsin March 2023.
What is radiometric dating?
When an natural entity is alive, its physique retains absorbing and shedding carbon-14 atoms. When it dies, this course of stops and the extant carbon-14 begins to decay away. Using the distinction between the relative abundance of those atoms within the physique and the quantity that ought to’ve been there, researchers can estimate when the entity died.
A major early problem with carbon dating was to detect carbon-14 atoms, which happen as soon as in round 10 12 carbon atoms. Calcium-41 is rarer, occurring as soon as in round 10 15 calcium atoms.
In the brand new research, researchers on the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), Hefei, pitched a method known as atom-trap hint evaluation (ATTA) as an answer. ATTA is delicate sufficient to identify these atoms; particular sufficient to not confuse them for different related atoms; and matches on a tabletop.
How does ATTA work?
A pattern is vaporised in an oven. The atoms within the vapour are laser-cooled and loaded into a cage made of sunshine and magnetic fields.
We know that in an atom, an electron in a single orbital can transition to the subsequent if it’s given a certain quantity of power; then it jumps again by releasing that power. In ATTA, a laser’s frequency is tuned such that it imparts the identical power as required for an electron transition in calcium-41. The electrons take up and launch this power, revealing the presence of their atoms.
The researchers reported having the ability to spot one calcium-41 atom in each 10 16 calcium atoms with 12% precision in seawater. “However, there was only one sample analysed,” Tian Xia, an affiliate scientist at USTC and a coauthor of the paper, advised The Hindu by e-mail.
Can ATTA be improved?
In future, “we hope that from the effusive atomic beam, the loading efficiency of the Ca-41 atoms into the trap can be improved,” so the measurement time for every pattern is decrease and the sensitivity is increased, Dr. Xia added.
USTC group chief Zheng-Tian Lu advised Physics Today that ATTA’s success is because of improvements with lasers: “laser power is a lot higher, and laser frequency control is better – everything got better.”
ATTA additionally avoids potassium-41 atoms, which are much like calcium-41 atoms however lack the identical electron transition. It can be modified to review isotopes of some noble gases which have defied strategies developed for carbon-14, corresponding to argon-39, krypton-81, and krypton-85. They can be utilized to remain groundwater and frozen water.
What are the purposes of ATTA + calcium-41?
“The successful application of [ATTA] to a calcium isotope now opens the possibility of extension to other metal isotopes,” University of Adelaide physicist Rohan Glover wrote in Nature in April.
The researchers are at the moment exploring an earth-science utility. In hotter local weather, glaciers retreat and permit rock under to build up calcium-41. In colder local weather, glaciers advance and block the calcium-41 from reaching the rock. This approach, scientists hope to make use of ATTA to review how lengthy some rock has been lined by ice.
“We are collaborating with geo-scientists … by measuring the Ca-41 abundance in some rock samples,” Dr. Xia stated.
