Development of a non-destructive depth-selective quantification method for sub-percent carbon contents in steel using negative muon lifetime analysis.

The amount of C in steel, which is critical in determining its properties, is strongly influenced by steel production technology. We propose a novel method of quantifying the bulk C content in steel non-destructively using muons. This revolutionary method may be used not only in the quality control of steel in production, but also in analyzing precious steel archaeological artifacts. A negatively charged muon forms an atomic system owing to its negative charge, and is finally absorbed into the nucleus or decays to an electron. The lifetimes of muons differ significantly, depending on whether they are trapped by Fe or C atoms, and identifying the elemental content at the muon stoppage position is possible via muon lifetime measurements. The relationship between the muon capture probabilities of C/Fe and the elemental content of C exhibits a good linearity, and the C content in the steel may be quantitatively determined via muon lifetime measurements. Furthermore, by controlling the incident energies of the muons, they may be stopped in each layer of a stacked sample consisting of three types of steel plates with thicknesses of 0.5 mm, and we successfully determined the C contents in the range 0.20-1.03 wt% depth-selectively, without sample destruction.

Optical imaging of muons.

Optical imaging of particle beams is a promising method for range and width estimations. However it was not clear that optical imaging was possible for muons. To clarify this, we conducted optical imaging of muons, since high-intensity muons are now available at J-PARC. We irradiated positive muons with different momenta to water or plastic scintillator block, and imaged using a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera during irradiation. The water and plastic scintillator block produced quite different images. The images of water during irradiation of muons produced elliptical shape light distribution at the end of the ranges due to Cherenkov-light from the positrons produced by positive muon decay, while, for the plastic scintillator block, we measured images similar to the dose distributions. We were able to estimate the ranges of muons as well as the measurement of the asymmetry of the direction of the positron emission by the muon decays from the optical images of the water, although the measured ranges were 4 mm to 5 mm larger than the calculated values. The ranges and widths of the beams could also be estimated from the optical images of the plastic scintillator block. We confirmed that optical imaging of muons was possible and is a promising method for the quality assessment, research of muons, and the future muon radiotherapy.

Nondestructive elemental depth-profiling analysis by muonic X-ray measurement.

Elemental analysis of materials is fundamentally important to science and technology. Many elemental analysis methods have been developed, but three-dimensional nondestructive elemental analysis of bulk materials has remained elusive. Recently, our project team, dreamX (damageless and regioselective elemental analysis with muonic X-rays), developed a nondestructive depth-profiling elemental analysis method after a decade of research. This new method utilizes a new type of probe; a negative muon particle and high-energy muonic X-rays emitted after the muon stops in a material. We performed elemental depth profiling on an old Japanese gold coin (Tempo-Koban) using a low-momentum negative muon beam and successfully determined that the Au concentration in the coin gradually decreased with depth over a micrometer length scale. We believe that this method will be a promising tool for the elemental analysis of valuable samples, such as archeological artifacts.