Isotope ratio measurements by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and glow discharge mass spectrometry (GDMS)

Critical comparison of radiometric and mass spectrometric methods for the determination of radionuclides in environmental, biological and nuclear waste samples

“…It has therefore also been used for the determination of radionuclides (radioisotopes of elements) for more than 25 years [20][21][22]. Solid-state mass spectrometric methods, such as laser ablation ICP-MS [23][24], GDMS [25][26][27]), and SIMS [28], allow direct determination of radionuclides in solid samples without any chemical preparation. This makes the analysis very simple and minimizes the risk from the contamination due to the limited sample handling.…”

“…SIMS has also been used for the determination of radionuclides, especially radionuclides in environmental "hot" particles and spatial distribution of radionuclides in materials [9,27,[106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116].…”

“…GDMS was established as a powerful and efficient analytical method for direct trace element determination and depth profile analysis of solids [26,27,[117][118][119]. In GDMS, an argon gas glow discharge at a pressure of 0.…”

Inorganic mass spectrometry as a tool for characterisation at the nanoscale

“…A critical comparison of analytical capabilities, with selected examples and trends of LA-ICP-MS, GD-MS and SIMS/SNMS, is presented here as they can be considered the most widespread and powerful inorganic MS techniques currently applied for the direct characterisation of solids at the nanoscale. For other ion sources enabling general solid-state inorganic analysis, the reader is invited to consult more general references [12][13][14][15].…”

“…The atomisation and ionisation processes in GD are separated in space and time, resulting in little matrix dependence, so quantification can be possible without the absolute need for matrix-matched standards. Moreover, the coupling of GDs and MS detection offers several important capabilities, such as high depth resolution (approximately nanometre), fast sputtering rate (on the order of micrometres per minute), multielemental analysis, isotopic information, low limits of detection (in the range of micrograms per gram to nanograms per gram) and ease of use [5,14].…”