The NOSAMS accelerator was installed in 1989 at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Accelerator mass spectrometry, or AMS, is a method of radiocarbon analysis where atoms of ¹⁴C contained in a sample are directly counted.

» Take the AMS Instrument Tour

Schematic overhead view of the NOSAMS AMS system. The system is over 30' long and consists of a 2.5 million Volt tandem (two-stage) accelerator, sandwiched between a low-energy mass spectrometer to the left and a high-energy mass spectrometer to the right. Major sections of the system are labeled in the schematic and described in detail when you click on them.