Enrichment of Double Beta Decay Isotope by Crown-ether & Microchip Chemical Plant

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The double beta decay, which can study the absolute neutrino mass and its Majorana nature, is one of the most important research and we will start CANDLES experiment soon utilizing 300kg of CaF_2 crystals containing of ^<48>Ca with the highest Q-value among double beta decay nuclei. The calcium cannot be enriched by centrifugal and diffusion separations and electromagnetic separation costs much and its production is limited only for tens of grams. We developed chemical isotope separation by liquid-liquid extraction with crown-ether and obtained the highest separation factor of 1.012(2℃)～1.014(20℃) (about two times of Jepson's 1.008 and five times of resin's 1.003) and showed the validity of microchip for the extraction process by gas-liquid two phase isotope exchange reaction and micromixer for emulsification droplets.