Như NRA được sử dụng để phát hiện hạt nhân chủ yếu là ánh sáng, nó bổ sung chùm ion khác tăng tốc dựa trên kỹ thuật, tán xạ ngược Rutherford (RBS), nhạy cảm hơn với hạt nhân nặng hơn là ánh sáng hạt nhân. NRA đã có một loạt các ứng dụng, bao gồm cả việc sử dụng trong các kim loại investigacionsof, kính, | As NRA is sensitive only to the nuclei present in the sample it does not provide information on chemical bonding or microscopic sưucture. Hence it is often used in conjunction with other techniques that do provide such information such as ESCA optical absorption Auger or electron microscopy. As NRA is used to detect mainly light nuclei it complements another accelerator-based ion-beam technique Rutherford backscattering RBS which is more sensitive to heavy nuclei than to light nuclei. NRA has a wide range of applications including use in investigations of metals glasses and semiconductor materials and in such diverse fields as physics archaeology biology and geology. Basic Principles General1 A beam of charged particles an ion beam with an energy from a few hundred keV to several MeV is produced in an accelerator and bombards a sample. Nuclear reactions with low-Z nuclei in the sample are induced by this ion beam. Products of these reactions typically p d t He a particles and Ỵ rays are detected producing a spectrum of particle yield versus energy. Many p a reactions have energies that are too low for efficient detection. In these cases the associated Ỵ rays are detected instead. Important examples are 19A - 16ỡ a y 15JV - 12c a y These reactions may be used respectively to profile 19F and using incident proton beams or to profile hydrogen using incident beams of 19F and N. NRA exploits the body of data accumulated through research in low-energy nuclear physics to determine concentrations and distributions of specific elements or isotopes in a material. Two parameters important in interpreting NRA spectra are reaction Qvalues and cross sections. Qvalues are the energies released in specific nuclear reactions and are used to calculate the energies of particles resulting from the reaction. Reactions with large positive Qvalues are most suitable for NRA. Table 1 presents Qvalues for a number of nuclear reactions. More comprehensive compilations of these data .
