Accurate determination of elements in silicate glass by nanosecond and femtosecond laser ablation ICP-MS at high spatial resolution

Abstract

Despite the large number of successful applications of LA-ICP-MS, elemental fractionation remains the main limitation for many of its applications in the Earth sciences. This limitation is particularly notable for high spatial resolution analysis. Elemental fractionation and mass-load effect in silicate glasses NIST SRM 610 and GSE-1G were investigated by using 193nm ArF excimer nanosecond (ns) laser and 257nm femtosecond (fs) laser ablation systems coupled to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Contrary to those observed in ns-LA-ICP-MS, the most elemental fractionation at the small spot sizes of 16–24μm are lower than that at the large spot sizes of 44–60μm in fs-LA-ICP-MS. The significantly different fractionation behaviors of Li, Na, Si, K, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Rb, Cs and U between silicate glass materials NIST SRM 610 and GSE-1G observed in 193nm excimer LA-ICP-MS are eliminated by using 257nmfs-LA-ICP-MS at high spatial resolution. In addition, the mass load effect and matrix dependent mass load effect are also found to be reduced by using fs-LA-ICP-MS in comparison with ns-LA-ICP-MS. Except for Sb, Pb and Bi, the elemental fractionation is independent on the laser fluence chosen, which is irrespective of ns- or fs-LA-ICP-MS. In this study, a spot size of 24μm was used to test the capabilities of LA-ICP-MS analysis at high spatial resolution. The agreement between our data and the reference values is better than 10% for most of the elements in MPI-DING, USGS, and NIST glasses by using fs-LA-ICP-MS. For ns laser ablation analysis, the accuracy is highly dependent on the calibration strategies used (conventional external calibration method or 100% oxide normalization method) and the selected external reference materials (NIST SRM 610 or GSE-1G). The much less laser-induced elemental fractionation and matrix effect in fs-LA-ICP-MS in comparison with 193nm excimer LA-ICP-MS make it more suitable for the analysis of silicate materials at high spatial resolution.