Neutron activation analysis (NAA) is a method for measuring the chemical elements in a material. Simply stated, NAA involves converting a small number of atoms in a sample into radioactive atoms. When these radioactive atoms decay, they emit unique radiation that identifies the atoms, like a fingerprint identifies a person. Further, by carefully counting the number of radiation particles emitted from the sample, we can determine the number of atoms that are in the sample. Thus, NAA tells us both the identity (qualitative) and the amount (quantitative) of an element in a sample.