A preliminary comparison of time-of-flight laser ionization and secondary ion mass spectrometry in solids analysis

In this work, a preliminary comparison was made between buffer-gas-assisted laser ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LI-TOFMS) and time-of-flight secondary ionization mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS). A reference steel sample and a soil sample were used as representative metal and oxide solid samples in the experiment. The comparison was focused on their spectral characteristics and standard-less quantitative capability in determine elements in solid samples. Since the oxygen has low ion yield, a new standard-less quantitative method was proposed for oxides analysis, which derives the oxygen intensity from other detected elements using their common oxidation states in calculation of oxygen concentration. The results indicate that both techniques meet the needs of standard-less semi-quantitative analysis. However, LI-TOFMS offers spectra with less interference, and leads to more determined elements and accurate quantitative results.