Sample Cell Features

The RESOlution 'Laurin' LA cell has been designed and developed by Michael Shelley of Laurin Technic. It provides a number of significant advantages over other cell designs.

Excellent Signal Homogeneity

Conventional laser ablation sample cells exhibit spatial variations in element fractionation and sample extraction efficiency. The 'Laurin' LA sample cell is free of these effects, both fractionation and sensitivity are homogeneous wherever is being sampled, ensuring that standards and unknowns behave identically.

ICP-MS signals show negligible difference throughout the cell.

Fast Washout Times

When ablating a line scan the spatial resolution of the results will be predominately affected by the "washout time" of the cell. This is easily tested by ablating for a nominal duration, turning off the laser source, and timing how long it takes the ICPMS signals to return to background levels.

Under standard conditions ICP-MS signals will washout by five orders of magnitude in less than four seconds.

Unique Signal Smoothing - The "Squid"

Some materials must be ablated using low (down to 1Hz) repetition rates and this can create data that is difficult to interpret. A device unique to RESOlution instruments is the "Squid", a multi-armed assembly that goes inline between the sample cell and the ICP. It will smooth all signals in a reproducible way while minimizing elemental fractionation.

The "Squid" produces smooth signals at low laser repetition rates.

Laser Features

193nm Excimer Lasers

RESOlution systems use excimer lasers from Coherent and ATL. These are industrial-grade lasers that deliver high fluences, large spots, and exceptional pulse to pulse stability.

Laser Options

There are four different systems available:

Laser Safety

All RESOlution laser systems are compliant to FDA/CDRH 21 CFR, Class I laser system. The laser system is fully interlocked with a fully enclosed beam path.

Laser Optics

The RESOlution has an excellent optical design with many significant features:

• Deep Hole Drilling - Holes in some material can be drilled up to 1000µm deep.

• Long Depth of Field - To precisely ablate non-flat samples.

• Excellent Beam Profile - The sample images to the right show craters with beautifully flat bottoms.

• Wide Range Of Fluence - From <2 to 30 J/cm².

• High Resolution - Spot sizes as small as 5µm.

Some Sample Craters

Here we present some sample craters in a range of materials, but please contact us if you would like to see examples in a particular material of interest or if you wish to send us a sample for testing.

Calcite

Glass (Ablated in Air)

NIST610

Our LA Control Software: GeoStar

Intuitive

GeoStar has been designed to work for all users, whether they are technical staff, professors, students, or even post-docs. The basic program operations are all displayed in a clear and obvious way with an attractive interface that assists your work flow every step of the way.

Training time is reduced significantly and most users find they can program their ablation seqeunce and start collecting data within twenty minutes or less.

GeoStar has an intuitive interface well suited to occasional users.

Powerful

Spot Sizes and Shapes

All systems come with a motorised mask wheel, allowing you to change spot size instantly and automatically. As standard the wheel is cut with twelve round holes, ranging in area on a rational scale. The mask can be made with all round holes, all square holes, or some combination of both.

The mask wheel is inserted into the beam path at different locations and its size is then demagnified onto the sample. This allows the instrument to deliver a wide range of spot sizes. Changing the demag location only takes a couple of minutes.

Standard Spot Sizes

This table shows the standard on-sample spot sizes (in microns) that can be ablated with each system. Remember , custom sizes, shapes and arrangements are always available on request.

Manual Masks

As well as the motorised mask wheel it is also possible to insert a single mask into the beam path at any demag position. Custom masks can be cut to any size or shape to suit specialised applications.

A manually-sizeable rectangular mask is also available, and this allows the user to choose a slit of any size. This mask can not be rotated to follow banded samples, and for these applications we recommend our automatic rotating slit attachment.

Track Banded Samples

The optional rectanglular rotating slit attachment makes it possible to follow the structure of a banded sample. The path can be chosen to move along the features, or across them, and the slit will be rotated to preserve its alignment to the path. This is very useful for many different samples including, corals, wood, teeth and all banded minerals.

The slit size is determined by two overlapping masks and the available sizes are shown in the table below.

Excellent Software Control

The software makes it easy to choose the path to ablate. Using the mouse or trackball a number of points can be defined to mark the desired path. The rotating slit can then be instructed to maintain a fixed angle or follow the path at some relative angle.

Sample Holders

Three sample holders are supplied as standard and ensure that nearly any samples can be successfully mounted. Detailed size information is shown in the tables below, but it may also be possible to fabricate a custom holder to suit your exact needs. Please contact us for details.

Round Holder

Thin Section Holder

Universal Holder