In the last few years elemental imaging by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) has advanced rapidly, both due to hardware development associated with fast aerosol transport technologies and a deeper understanding of the influence of operational parameters on the image quality. Herein we describe the effect of dosage, i.e., the number of laser pulses per pixel, on the image quality attainable by LA-ICP-QMS as illustrated by mapping of a biological (murine brain tissue) and a mineralogical (asbestos fibers) sample. The usage of higher dosages results in better S/N ratios and is crucial when elements are present at lower concentration levels, or if mapping of more than one element is required. While this potentially increases the mapping time, elemental images with higher dosages will generally be of better quality.

中文翻译：

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LA-ICP-QMS成像中激光剂量对图像质量的影响

在过去的几年中，由于与快速气溶胶传输技术相关的硬件开发以及对操作参数对图像质量影响的更深入了解，通过激光烧蚀电感耦合等离子体质谱仪（LA-ICPMS）进行的元素成像已得到快速发展。在此我们描述剂量的作用，即LA-ICP-QMS可获得的图像质量上的每像素激光脉冲数，如生物（鼠脑组织）和矿物学（石棉纤维）样品的图所示。较高剂量的使用会导致更好的信噪比，当元素以较低浓度存在时，或者需要绘制一个以上元素时，这一点至关重要。虽然这可能会增加映射时间，但是具有较高剂量的元素图像通常会具有更好的质量。