Critical assessment of the effects of skimmer cone geometry on spectroscopic and non-spectroscopic interference in inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Abstract

Three different designs for skimmer cones, mounted in the interface region of an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometric (ICP-MS) instrument, were evaluated with respect to their effect on analyte sensitivity, the magnitude of polyatomic ions, refractory oxide ions, doubly charged ions and background and non-spectroscopic matrix effects. Initial results for one particular design, termed ‘PolySkim’, conducted on both a standard commercial and the Surrey design ICP-MS instruments, show a significant reduction in the size of the ArO⁺ and other polyatomic peaks, with no corresponding deterioration of detection limits across the mass range, although a decrease in sensitivity did occur.