Olga Borovinskaya, Marie Christine Boiron, Leif Summerfield
\nTOFWERK, Universite\u0301 de Lorraine, ESI<\/p>\n
High resolution elemental imaging by LA-ICP-MS can provide insights into the geological history of minerals.<\/p>\n
Most current methods for elemental mapping by LA-ICP-MS use quadrupole or sector field mass analyzers that sequentially measure each isotope of interest at each “pixel” in the imaged 2D area. \u00a0Because measurement time increases linearly with the number of elements recorded, researchers must carefully define which elements to measure for an unknown sample.<\/p>\n
The TOFWERK\u00a0icpTOF<\/a> uses a time-of-flight mass analyzer that simultaneously measures all\u00a0isotopes at high speed. \u00a0It is therefore\u00a0well-suited for coupling to new laser ablation chambers\u00a0that\u00a0generate very short plumes of aerosols per laser pulse and provide higher S\/N and imaging speed.\u00a0This work<\/span>\u00a0demonstrates\u00a0fast mapping of Ge-rich sphalerite at 5 \u00b5m resolution using the\u00a0icpTOF<\/a> and the\u00a0recently developed Dual Concentric Injector from ESI<\/a>. Where standard setups have to step across pixels to obtain\u00a0a\u00a0pixel-resolved image, this configuration is able to resolve pixels while running in\u00a0the fastest possible\u00a0continuous scanning mode and recording a complete mass spectrum at each pixel.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.tofwerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Screen-Shot-2016-11-16-at-10.28.59-AM-1.png\")