Theory and Error Correction for Large Sample Neutron Activation Analysis

Neutron activation analysis (NAA), as one of the most important inorganic trace analysis techniques, has been widely used in various fields. At present, however, it has been implemented only on relatively small sample sizes (typically, several hundred mg or μL) in all domestic and large majority of foreign NAA laboratories. In this paper, the necessity, the theory and the practice of large sample NAA (LSNAA) were briefly introduced. Corrections for thermal neutron self-shielding, γ-ray self-attenuation, and other factors involved in LSNAA were discussed.