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Article: Isotopic Analysis
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- Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, andSecurity
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Isotopic Analysis
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ALEXANDR IOFFE
Varieties of the same chemical element, but with different atomic weights, are called isotopes. Isotopic analysis (IA) is the analysis of the isotope composition of a sample. Samples in IA can contain almost anything: different objects of everyday life, pieces of rocks, pieces of wood, samples of tissue taken from a human body, chemical compounds, and so on. In general, and with some degree of simplification, isotopic analysis is used for identification of a sample and for the determination of its age. Isotopic analysis is based upon the use of mass spectrometers or radioactive radiation counters. A mass spectrometer is a device that ...