In this work, a novel method for high spatial resolution U-Pb dating of zircon by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) at 10–16 μm spot diameter has been proposed. This was achieved by introducing 2% () water-ethanol vapours into ICP in combination with the shielded torch system to increase the sensitivity and suppress the isotopic fractionation effect. Precise and accurate concordant U-Pb ages for Plešovice, GJ-1, and 91500 zircons were obtained using the proposed method, and the results agreed well with the isotope dilution-thermal ionization mass spectrometry (ID-TIMS) and LA-ICP-MS within 2σ, except for the ages obtained using dry plasma at 10 μm spot diameter. Additionally, the effects of plasma condition (dry plasma or 2% () ethanol plasma) and spot size (10, 16, 24, or 32 μm) on precision (RSD), accuracy (RE), and uncertainty (2σ) of the ²⁰⁶Pb/²³⁸U ages have been studied. The results indicated that increasing the spot diameter and introducing 2% () water-ethanol vapours into ICP significantly improved the precision, accuracy, and uncertainty for small spot diameters (10 and 16 μm), while it exhibited little influence for intermediate spot diameters (24 and 32 μm). Furthermore, the effects of spot size and plasma condition on the precision, accuracy, and uncertainty strongly depended on the sensitivity of analytes.

中文翻译：

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改进了使用混合气体等离子体对锆石进行高分辨率U-Pb定年的LA-ICP-MS分析能力。

在这项工作中，通过激光烧蚀锆石的高空间分辨率的U-Pb定的新方法在10-16电感耦合等离子体质谱法（LA-ICP-MS）  μ米光斑直径已经提出。这是通过将2％（）的水-乙醇蒸气与屏蔽炬管系统结合引入ICP中以提高灵敏度并抑制同位素分馏效果而实现的。使用所提出的方法获得了准确准确的Plešovice，GJ-1和91500锆石一致的U-Pb年龄，结果与同位素稀释-热电离质谱（ID-TIMS）和LA-ICP-MS吻合得很好。 2内σ，除了年龄使用干等离子体获得的10  μ米点直径。此外，血浆条件（干血浆或2％（）乙醇血浆）和斑点大小（10、16、24或32μm  ）对精度（RSD），精度（RE）和不确定度（2σ）的影响已经研究了²⁰⁶ Pb / ²³⁸ U的年龄。结果表明，提高了光点直径，并引入2％（ ）的水-乙醇蒸气进入ICP显著提高了精度，准确度和不确定性为小光点的直径（10和16  μ M），而它显示出对中间处的光斑直径的影响小（24和 32μm）。此外，光斑尺寸和等离子体条件对精度，准确性和不确定性的影响在很大程度上取决于分析物的灵敏度。