Laser mass spectrometric studies on rare earth doped UO2

A laser mass spectrometry system comprising of in-house developed reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer was used to study solid and liquid samples containing UO2 doped with lighter rare earths (La, Ce, Sm and Nd). Unit mass resolution is obtained for all the rare earth isotopes. Preliminary results indicate that this method has potential for direct determination of burnup of irradiated nuclear fuel.