Recent developments in laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy

Full text. In the last decade, it has been possible to directly interface the ICP with a quadrupole mass spectrometer, the resulting combination (ICP-MS) yielding not only trace element analysis but also isotope ratios. Recently, several methods of sample introduction have been tried with ICP-MS. Of these, laser ablation, in which solid material is irradiated with laser light, yielding sample droplets and vapor, some of which is wept to the ICP by a flow of argon, offers many analytical advantages. These include little or no sample preparation, low levels of water-related interferences; good detection limits; rapid sample throughput; and spatially-resolved analyses. Difficulties relate primarily to the matrix-dependence of the ablation process, which compromises both the accuracy and precision of the concentration data. In this work, the performance, promise and problems of LA-ICP-MS for elemental and isotope ratio analysis are illustrated from recent literature. (author)