Abstract. Among the different solar cell technologies, amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film solar cells (TFSCs) are today very promising and, so, TFSCs analytical characterization for quality control issues is increasingly demanding. In this line, depth profile analysis of a-Si:H TFSCs on steel substrate has been investigated by using pulsed radiofrequency glow discharge-time of flight mass spectrometry (rf-PGD-TOFMS ) appropriate time positions along the GD pulse profile were selected. A multi-matrix calibration approach, using homogeneous certified reference materials without hydrogen as well as coated laboratory-made standards containing hydrogen, was employed for the methodological calibration. Different calibration strategies (in terms of time interval selection on the pulse profile within the afterglow region) have been compared, searching for optimal calibration graphs correlation. Results showed that reliable and fast quantitative depth profile analysis of a-Si:H TFSCs by rf-PGD-TOFMS can be achieved.
Platinum group elements (PGEs) are particularly interesting analytes in different fields, including environmental samples as well as high cost materials that contain them, such as for example automotive catalysts. This type of solid samples could be analysed by laser ablation (LA) coupled to ICP-MS, which allow to significantly reducing the analysis time since the time-consuming processes for sample preparation are not required. There is a considerable demand of standards with high PGEs concentration for quantification purposes, which cannot be carried out easily using LA-ICP-MS because the available standards (i.e. NIST SRM 61x series) do not have such analytes in the same concentration range. In this paper, a new strategy is proposed for the synthesis of homogeneous laboratory standards with Pt, Pd and Rh concentrations that range from 77 g/g of Pd up to 2035 g/g of Rh. The proposed strategy is based on the synthesis of monodisperse amino-functionalized amorphous silica nanoparticles, which can retain metal ions. In addition to Pt, Pd and Rh, three lanthanides were also added to the nanoparticles (La, Ce, Nd). Sturdy pressed pellets can be made from the resulting nanopowder without the use of any binder. Elemental composition of standards made of nanoparticles was analysed by conventional nebulization ICP-MS and their homogeneity was successfully evaluated by LA-ICP-MS.
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