Investigation of vacuum melting technique for low background titanium

Abstract

BackgroundThe expected signal rate of rare decay experiments, such as instance dark matter and neutrino less double beta decay experiments, is extremely low, which requires that the detector building materials have extremely low radioactivity. Low radioactive background control is one of the essential works in the rare decay experiments. 226Ra and 228Ra produced in the early decay chain of 238U and 232Th have low boiling point and high vapor pressure, removing the element Ra can break the 238U decay chain and keep a low radioactivity of 232Th-late for a long time.PurposeThis study aims to investigate vacuum melting technique for low background titanium to reduce the impurity of isotopes that have negative impact on rare decay experiments and creating a low background environment for the detector running.MethodsFirstly, the low background material samples were acquired by manual separation of radionuclides using physical and chemical methods. Then, radioactive impurity elements, such as K, Cs, Ra, Pb, Po and Rn with low boiling point and high vapor pressure, were volatilized in environment with high temperature and high vacuum level. Finally, radioactivity of these testing samples were measured by two sets of high-purity germanium γ spectrometer with measurement time extended to 7 days.ResultsMeasurement results show signs of removal of radioactive isotopes by smelting-vacuum method, and the impurity in pure titanium smelted in vacuum electron beam furnace can reach the levels of (0.13±0.69) mBq∙kg-1 for 232Th-228Ac, and (0.07±0.29) mBq∙kg-1 for 238U-222Rn, respectively.ConclusionsThe smelting-vacuum method could provide reliable low background material for the container of the next generation PandaX detector.

Keywords

• low background
• rare decay experiment
• dark matter
• neutrinoless double beta decay
• vacuum melting