State-of-the-art in inorganic mass spectrometry for analysis of high-purity materials

Inorganic mass spectrometric methods are widely used for the multielemental determination of elements at the trace and ultratrace level in high-purity materials (e.g., conducting, semiconducting and nonconducting solid samples, high-purity water, organic solutions and solvents). Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), glow discharge mass spectrometry (GDMS) and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) have been applied as powerful mass spectrometric techniques with their multielemental capability for the determination of trace and ultratrace elements in high-purity solid and liquid samples. The detection limits for the analysis of solid samples by inorganic solid mass spectrometry were determined down to sub-ng g−1 and for aqueous solution by ICP-MS down to sub-pg L−1. The aim of this review is to discuss the various inorganic mass spectrometric techniques including new analytical developments and their application for the quantitative determination of trace and ultratrace elements of quite different materials for the semiconductor industry and materials research. © 2003 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.