Lasers in solid state mass spectrometry

J laser micro—analyser was used to directly produce ions from aluminium, iron and brass targets in the ion source of double focusing mass spectrometer. Relative sensitivity coefficients using aluminium and iron standards were determined. With a laser power densitiy of about 5x10'° W/cm2 (0.05 J), values similar to those in spark source mass spectrometry were obtained. It is concluded that the use of laser ionization enables a precision as good as ±0.l to be obtained but it cannot justificably be stated that all impurities in any matrix have identical relative sensitivities.