Issue 4, 2021

Elimination of aliasing in LA-ICP-MS by alignment of laser and mass spectrometer

Abstract

Insufficient sampling of periodic signals results in an unwanted phenomenon known as aliasing. When measuring by LA-ICP-MS it is widely observed that aliasing between laser pulse rates and sampling by sequential ICP-MS instruments creates erroneous variations in the measured element concentrations in the sample. Smoothing the sample flow to the ICP-MS can largely eliminate this variation but reduces spatial resolution of the time-resolved signal and is thus detrimental for imaging with the increasingly popular fast response sample cells. We have developed a fire control circuit that fires the laser in alignment with the measurement cycle of the mass spectrometer to lessen or eliminate aliasing. We describe the device and show that with a conventional quadrupole ICP-MS the technique is able to maintain measurement precision when the extent of mixing between individual laser pulses is reduced by an order of magnitude.

Graphical abstract: Elimination of aliasing in LA-ICP-MS by alignment of laser and mass spectrometer

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Technical Note
Submitted
25 Nov 2020
Accepted
18 Feb 2021
First published
23 Feb 2021

J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2021,36, 733-739

Elimination of aliasing in LA-ICP-MS by alignment of laser and mass spectrometer

C. A. Norris, L. Danyushevsky, P. Olin and N. R. West, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2021, 36, 733 DOI: 10.1039/D0JA00488J

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