title: Portable laser ablation sampling device for elemental fingerprinting of objects outside the laboratory with laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry.
abstract: Laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) is a powerful method for elemental fingerprinting of solid samples in a quasi-nondestructive manner. In order to extend the field of application to objects outside the laboratory, a portable laser ablation sampling device was assembled using a diode pumped solid state laser and fiber-optics. The ablated materials were sampled on membrane filters and subsequently quantified by means of LA-ICPMS. The analytical performance of this approach was investigated for glass and gold reference materials. Accuracies of better than 20% were reached for most elements and typical limits of detection were found to be in the range of 0.01-1 μg/g. In summary, this approach combines spatially resolved sampling with the detection power of ICPMS and enables elemental fingerprinting of objects which cannot be transferred to the laboratory, e.g., archeological artifacts in museums.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry, ETH Zürich, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 10, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Reto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Glaus
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Koch
authors.forename: Detlef
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Günther