title: Evaluation of different calibration strategies for the analysis of pure copper and zinc samples using femtosecond laser ablation ICP-MS.
abstract: Solution-doped metal powder pellets as well as aspirated liquids were used as calibration samples to analyze pure copper and zinc certified reference materials (CRMs) by femtosecond laser ablation ICP-MS. It was demonstrated that calibration by copper pellets resulted in relative deviations up to 20%, whereas fs-LA-ICP-MS among copper-based CRMs led to inaccuracies in the same range unless nominal mass fractions were chosen to be <3 mg/kg. Calibration by zinc pellets generally provided better accuracy. Depending on the analyte considered, deviations below 10% were obtained even for mass fractions close to the limit of quantification. Our data, therefore, indicate solution-doped metal powder pellets to be suitable as calibration samples for fs-LA-ICP-MS of metals. Furthermore, the utilization of liquid standards for calibration was found to result in stronger deviations of up to 50% for both copper and zinc samples which, in addition, turned out to be dependent on the plasma conditions.
authors.affiliation: BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Richard-Willstaetter-Strasse 11, 12489 Berlin, Germany. heike.traub@bam.de
authors.forename: Heike
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Traub
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wälle
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Koch
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Panne
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Matschat
authors.forename: Heinrich
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kipphardt
authors.forename: Detlef
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Günther