Critical assessment of the effects of skimmer cone geometry on spectroscopic and non-spectroscopic interference in inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

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Kym E. Jarvis, Paul Mason, Tom Platzner and John G. Williams


Abstract

Three different designs for skimmer cones, mounted in the interface region of an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometric (ICP-MS) instrument, were evaluated with respect to their effect on analyte sensitivity, the magnitude of polyatomic ions, refractory oxide ions, doubly charged ions and background and non-spectroscopic matrix effects. Initial results for one particular design, termed ‘PolySkim’, conducted on both a standard commercial and the Surrey design ICP-MS instruments, show a significant reduction in the size of the ArO+ and other polyatomic peaks, with no corresponding deterioration of detection limits across the mass range, although a decrease in sensitivity did occur.


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