Element sorption on thiolate-functionalized Au-coated Si detectors in isothermal online gas-phase experiments

Developing a novel detector setup for the rapid superheavy element detection in the gas phase has been a current research topic for many scientists. The findings of our previous work showed that 1-(11-mercaptoundecyl)imidazole and 12-mercaptododecanoic acid self-assembled monolayers on Au-coated Si and glass chips are stable and effective materials for the Ir(IV) adsorption from HCl solutions 1 . As the next step, this paper reports the first attempt to sorb 152,153 Er, 199-201 At, and 173-176 Ir radionuclides on thiolate-functionalized Au-coated Si detectors during online cyclotron-based experiments performed at the Cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M University using the AGGIE (Albert Ghiorso’s Gas-filled Ion Equipment) separator. A simple recoil transfer chamber equipped with four consecutive alpha-detectors was designed and used to thermalize nuclear reaction products and study their chemical behavior. The surfaces of three out of four detectors were Au-coated, two of which were functionalized with different thiol molecules. The design of the detector chamber allowed for an easy change of the detectors’ order. The detector position and the surface material were found to influence the sorption of the studied nuclides within the isothermal detector setup. The detector resolution stayed in the same order after the gold coating and the detector usage in online experiments.