A Minivial for Small-Sample 14C Dating

Abstract

We have designed a 0.3-ml Teflon minivial for 14C dating of small samples in a liquid scintillation counter. We use a special adapter of standard vial size to optimize the position of the vial with respect to the phototubes and to intercept the light path between them, thus reducing optical cross-talk. Better performance can be achieved by using customized vials than by diluting small samples for counting in large vials. We have achieved counting efficiencies up to 80% in 0.3-ml vials typically with 0.05 cpm background.