An analytical figure of merit term to assess the practical advantages of anticoincidence gamma-ray spectrometry in INAA and its application to the determination of low levels of magnesium in biological reference materials

摘要

One of the advantages of anticoincidence counting is the substantial decrease of background activity leading to improved detection limits. A disadvantage is the reduction of a gamma-ray peak area. We defined an analytical figure of merit (AFOM) term for assessing the practical advantages of anticoincidence counting in instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). This term takes into account parameters such as peak resolution, peak area, background, dead time, counting time, and counting statistics and represents changes in the sample matrix composition. The effectiveness of the AFOM term was evaluated by analyzing 16 NIST and IAEA biological reference materials for Mg by INAA.