Studies on the complete laser vaporisation of powdered solid samples into an inductively coupled plasma for atomic emission spectrometry

The behaviour of solid materials on vaporisation by a continuous laser is described. The characteristics of the continuous-laser vaporisation have given rise to a new concept of “complete laser vaporisation.” A continuous-laser vaporisation-inductively coupled plasma (ICP) system has been designed and tested for the direct analysis of powdered samples, consisting of a re-designed samples chamber and a continuous laser, rather than a pulsed laser, for the complete vaporisation of powdered samples. The sample vapour was introduced into the ICP and the atomic emission measured by both a sequential spectrometer and a spectrograph. Detailed investigation indicated that this system performed well for the direct analysis of powdered samples, giving good results for the direct analysis of Geological Standard Reference Samples of China (GSD).