Ion Beams Laboratory

The Atomki IBA Facility – as part of a registered national infrastructure – conducts complex ion beam analytical investigations. Ion beam analysis is a family of techniques using ions in the MeV energy range produced by a particle accelerator. The most important beamline for HS is the scanning nuclear microprobe. As cultural heritage samples are often not uniform, the available beam size down to 1 μm in vacuum provides an important tool for the determination of concentration and distribution of elements with high lateral resolution. An external micro-beam arrangement is also available for artefacts of bigger sizes or sensitive nature, also with mapping. Based on the decades-long expertise in the field and the various available techniques employing X-ray, gamma-ray and particle detection, the analytical capacities of the laboratory cover a wide range of elements (basically from hydrogen to uranium), material types and research questions. Atomki, being the coordinator of the E-RIHS.hu platform, is the beneficiary partner institution in both E-RIHS PP and IPERION HS.