| Abstract |
Laser Ablation-ICP-MS has become the most important and successful technique for direct elemental analysis in solids, including: silicate samples, nano tubes, glass, metals, archaeological samples, etc. Despite this, recent studies in LA-ICP-MS show that all three individual processes during sampling and detection (ablation, aerosol transport and vaporization, atomisation and ionisation) are distinct sources of elemental fractionation and can lead to inaccurate quantification. Therefore, any reduction in elemental fractionation will significantly improve the future applications of this technique.Research shall be carried out to describe the composition of the aerosol after ablation, during transport and within the ICP-MS. The main goal is to understand the various processes involved in LA-ICP-MS to achieve representative sampling, transport and excitation of laser-induced aerosols for quantitative analysis using non-matrix matched calibration standards. At present, a transport efficiency of 10 % of the laser-generated aerosol and the vaporization and ionisation efficiency of 2-3 % of the total introduced mass into the ICP represent a severe loss of valuable analytical information and leads to problems in quantification. Therefore, the aerosol formation and transport processes need modifications, which will be studied by direct gas phase reactions of theablated material using different gas combinations to enhance sample transport.Our research will also focus on fundamentals of 266 nm femtosecond laser ablation. Such a system will be established and used for aerosol production studying the capabilities of non-thermal ablation processes. The fs-laser ablation process leads to less thermal treatment of the ablated material, which is expected to create a more representative aerosol and a smaller average particle size distribution that is more efficiently vaporized and ionized within the ICP-MS.
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