Laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) is a widely accepted method for direct sampling of solid materials for trace elemental analysis. The number of reported applications is high and the application range is broad; besides geochemistry, LA-ICP-MS is mostly used in environmental chemistry and the life sciences. This review focuses on the application of LA-ICP-MS for quantification of trace elements in environmental, biological, and medical samples. The fundamental problems of LA-ICP-MS, such as sample-dependent ablation behavior and elemental fractionation, can be even more pronounced in environmental and life science applications as a result of the large variety of sample types and conditions. Besides variations in composition, the range of available sample states is highly diverse, including powders (e.g., soil samples, fly ash), hard tissues (e.g., bones, teeth), soft tissues (e.g., plants, tissue thin-cuts), or liquid samples (e.g., whole blood). Within this article, quantification approaches that have been proposed in the past are critically discussed and compared regarding the results obtained in the applications described. Although a large variety of sample types is discussed within this article, the quantification approaches used are similar for many analytical questions and have only been adapted to the specific questions. Nevertheless, none of them has proven to be a universally applicable method.
Strange metal behavior is ubiquitous in correlated materials ranging from cuprate superconductors to bilayer graphene. There is increasing recognition that it arises from physics beyond the quantum fluctuations of a Landau order parameter which, in quantum critical heavy fermion antiferromagnets, may be realized as critical Kondo entanglement of spin and charge. The dynamics of the associated electronic delocalization transition could be ideally probed by optical conductivity, but experiments in the corresponding frequency and temperature ranges have remained elusive. We present terahertz time-domain transmission spectroscopy on molecular beam epitaxy-grown thin films of YbRh 2 Si 2 , a model strange metal compound. We observe frequency over temperature scaling of the optical conductivity as a hallmark of beyond-Landau quantum criticality. Our discovery implicates critical charge fluctuations as playing a central role in the strange metal behavior, thereby elucidating one of the longstanding mysteries of correlated quantum matter. arXiv:1808.02296v1 [cond-mat.str-el]
The interface stability versus Li represents a major challenge in the development of next-generation all-solid-state batteries (ASSB), which take advantage of the inherently safe ceramic electrolytes. Cubic Li7La3Zr2O12 garnets represent the most promising electrolytes for this technology. The high interfacial impedance versus Li is, however, still a bottleneck toward future devices. Herein, we studied the electrochemical performance of Fe3+-stabilized Li7La3Zr2O12 (LLZO:Fe) versus Li metal and found a very high total conductivity of 1.1 mS cm–1 at room temperature but a very high area specific resistance of ∼1 kΩ cm2. After removing the Li metal electrode we observe a black surface coloration at the interface, which clearly indicates interfacial degradation. Raman- and nanosecond laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy reveals, thereafter, the formation of a 130 μm thick tetragonal LLZO interlayer and a significant Li deficiency of about 1–2 formula units toward the interface. This shows that cubic LLZO:Fe is not stable versus Li metal by forming a thick tetragonal LLZO interlayer causing high interfacial impedance.
LA-ICP-MS imaging experiments are of growing interest within the field of biosciences. Revealing the distributions of major components as well as trace elements in biological samples can help to understand fundamental biological processes. However, highly variable sample conditions and changing instrumental parameters during measurement time aggravate reliable quantification especially in biological tissues. Normally matrix matched standards used for calibration are scarcely available and the manufacturing process thereof is rather complicated. Thus most experiments reported in the literature only delivered qualitative information on the analyte distributions. The use of appropriate internal standards facilitates the preparation of calibrations even without the utilization of matrix-matched standards. In the presented work an approach for providing reliable quantitative bio-images is proposed using gold thin-layers as an internal standard and patterns printed with commercially available inkjet printers as standards. The method development is based on copper from blue ink as the element of interest. It could be shown that gold standardization compensates instrumental drifts, matrix related ablation differences and day-to-day signal changes. Not only was the quality of the obtained images improved by gold standardization; while the relative standard deviation of the measurements was around 15% before standardization it could be decreased to less than 5% by gold standardization. Also quantitative information could be obtained for samples with unknown analyte concentrations. Depending on the used beam diameter limits of detection in the range of some hundreds ng g(-1) were achieved. The presented method is a promising and easy-to-handle alternative to matrix matched standards for signal quantification.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.