Determination of tellurium in indium antimonide by slurry sampling electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry

Abstract

A method for the determination of tellurium dopant concentration in indium antimonide (InSb) by Zeeman effect electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry using the slurry sampling technique was developed. The effects of chemical modifier type and mass on the absorbance-peak characteristics of tellurium in InSb slurried samples were studied. The atomization behavior of tellurium in InSb slurries could be greatly improved by the use of palladium nitrate as a chemical modifier. The detection limit of the optimized procedure was 0.4 µg g –1 . In the determination of tellurium at the concentration level of 16 µg g –1 , a relative standard deviation of 7% was obtained. Good agreement of the results obtained by the slurry sampling technique with those obtained by solution electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was found.