Isotope determination by portable laser ablation sampling
A portable laser ablation sampling device can help analyse valuable historical artifacts.
The study is shown in a paper just published in JAAS by Advisory Board member Detlef Günther and colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH, Zürich, Switzerland.
The researchers used laser ablation coupled to a multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) to determine lead isotopes in Chinese ceramics, and applied a portable device to enable remote analysis. Laser generated aerosol samples were collected on membrane filters and consequently analysed in the laboratory by LA-ICPMS. With the new device, sampling of objects is independent of their location, size and shape.
This new method showed an analytical performance similar to a laboratory-based analysis and enabled simultaneous isotopic and elemental analysis without invasive sampling such as scraping or drilling of the objects.
To know more about this study, please access the link below. This paper will be free to read until May 24th.
Isotope ratio determination of objects in the field by portable laser ablation sampling and subsequent multicollector ICPMS
Reto Glaus, Ladina Dorta, Zhiguo Zhang, Qinglin Ma, Heinz Berke and Detlef Günther
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2013, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C3JA30379A
