It is used mainly for radiocarbon dating for very small samples of carbon; however, many measurements have also been made on the longer lived radionuclides such as ²⁶Al, ¹⁰Be, ³⁶Cl. and ¹²⁹I.

    Today, an external precision of about ±0.4% in ¹⁴C content, or ±35 years in uncalibrated radiocarbon age is possible on one 0.5-milligram-sized sample target. Samples as small as 100 micrograms have been successfully dated to about ±150 years BP and even smaller samples have been measured for special experiments. When multiple targets from the same sample are measured, we can reduce the error to about ±0.2% or better than ±20 years in radiocarbon age.