We have performed a new determination of the half-life of 41Ca by measuring the specific activity of an enriched Ca material with known 41Ca abundance. We measured the activity via the 3.3-keV X-rays emitted in the electron capture decay of 41Ca, and the 41Ca abundance was measured by low-energy mass spectrometry. The result, t1/2 = (1.01 ± 0.10) × 105 yr, agrees with the recent ‘geological’ half-life of Klein et al., (1991), t1/2 = (1.03 ± 0.07) × 105 yr, and with the corrected value of Mabuchi et al. (1974), t1/2 = (1.13 ± 0.12) × 105 yr. We recommend the weighted mean of these three measurements, t1/2 = (1.04 ± 0.05) × 105 yr, as the most probable half-life of 41Ca. We also discuss the situation of the radioisotopes, 32Si, 44Ti, 79Se and 126Sn, whose half-lives, though still uncertain, are potentially interesting for future AMS studies and other applications.
Application of plasma mass spectrometry for half-life measurement of medium and long-lived radionuclides