Development of signal smoothing device for precise elemental analysis using laser ablation-ICP-mass spectrometry

Abstract

A new signal smoothing device (stabilizer) has been developed for elemental and isotopic ratio analyses of solid samples from small crater sizes obtained by a laser ablation-ICP-mass spectrometry. With the stabilizer developed in this study, no oscillation of signal intensity was found, even with the repetition rate of 2 Hz. The effectiveness of the stabilizer was evaluated by vigorous testing of the stability in signal intensity and the relationship between signal smoothing efficiency and signal decay time. The precision of elemental and isotopic ratio measurements was evaluated by the repeated analysis of 7 isotopes from NIST SRM 610 glass standard. The resulting repeatability in elemental ratio and isotopic ratio was as low as 2–4% (2 SD, n = 10). Another important advantage of using the stabilizer is that the elemental fractionation, which was a large source of analytical error, was successfully reduced by the laser ablation with low repetition rate ablation approach.