“…For example, solid deposition should be less significant in orifices of diameter >50 µ , which would also extract more ions into the vacuum system. A more streamlined, conical orifice assembly should deflect the plasma stream smoothly around the cone tip, instead of allowing a stagnant layer of gas to build up outside the extraction orifice (Figure 2) (10,11,15,16,38,40). Such refinements are expected to relax the compromise between powers of detection, dilution factors, and orifice lifetimes, thus facilitating application of the ICP-MS approach to elemental and isotopic determinations in samples of total solute content greater than 150 µg/mL.…”