Portable Laser Ablation Sampling Device for Elemental Fingerprinting of Objects Outside the Laboratory with Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

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.