Use of Intermediate-Energy Neutrons for a Neutron-Activation Analysis of Thick Samples

A method is developed for performing neutron-activation analysis using intermediate-energy neutrons in the region of nonoverlapping neutron spectra. A 1 cm thick 10B absorber was used to separate the required region of the neutron spectrum of the F-1 reactor. It was shown that the use of this region of the neutron spectra makes it possible to activate comparatively uniformly a large thickness of any element, even though capture is of a resonance type. At the same time, other elements, even the basic elements of the sample material, almost do not interfere with determining the content of the desired element, since the neutron resonances, as a rule, do not overlap. 3 figures, 1 table, 4 references.