Assoc. Prof. Dr. Christophe Pécheyran

Institut des Sciences Analytiques et de Physico-chimie de l’Environnement et des Matériaux

(IPREM), UMR 5254 Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour - CNRS, Laboratoire de Chimie Analytique
Bio Inorganique et Environnement (LCABIE)


Tuesday 11^th November 2014, 10.00 – 12.00, A14, seminary room K207:

Femtosecond Laser ablation/ICPMS for trace element and isotope ratio measurement: application to
biomineral, petroleum industry and forensic science.


Recent advances in laser physics, more precisely in the field of ultrashort pulses (femtoseconds),
have motivated the use of compact, robust and high repetition rate femtosecond laser sources. Many
industrial or research fields have been able to benefit (micromachining, microscopy, etc…) and
particularly analytical chemistry for trace (ug/g) or ultra-trace (<ug/g) quantification in solids
at the micron scale. Original approaches based on the use of high repetition rate (<100 kHz)
femtosecond lasers have been developed; they combine the intrinsic properties of fs pulses (very
limited thermal ablation, sometimes called “cold” ablation, and generation of thin particles easily
atomised into the ICP) with the fast movement of the laser beam at the surface of the sample using
two galvanometric scanners. This leads to “virtual beam shaping”, that allows simulating various
beam shapes for better spatial resolution, sensitivity and precision. It is then possible to adapt
the size and the shape of the laser beam to match perfectly with the sample morphology. This
approach has been applied to trace metal detection in micro-structured biocarbonates (fish otolith,
scallop shells), in crude oils, pure metals, glasses, polymers and environmental micro-particles.
In this course, we will present the concept of virtual beam shaping and some associated
applications.




Thursday 13^th November 2014, 14.00 – 16.00, A11, lecture room132:

Inorganic analytical chemistry in 5 dimensions: concentration, isotopes, speciation, spatial
resolution, time resolution and the way to combine all of them; some developments in LA in
proteomics.


Inorganic analytical chemistry is generally focussed on elemental concentration, isotopic
distribution, molecular information, spatial resolution or spatial resolution. These parameters
constitute the 5 dimensions of the inorganic analytical chemistry and are very often considered
individually. In this course, we will see how to combine trace element concentration and molecular
information, molecular information with isotope distribution, concentration with isotope and
spatial resolution, concentration with spatial resolution and molecular information… and of course
time resolution!

This approach relies on the combination of various techniques for sampling, sample preparation,
chemical separation and isotope detection.



Thursday 13^th November 2014, 16.00 – 17.00, A11, lecture room132:

Trace element determination by atomic spectrometry techniques.


Recent advances in atomic spectrometry allows considering original applications. Some techniques
considered as mature (or dead!) like GF/AAS might now relive due to the combination of graphite
furnace with continuum light source and high spectral resolution spectrometer. Inductively Coupled
Plasma Mass Spectrometry has also received a great interest in the last decade with the arising of
new mass spectrometer geometries: right angle ion beam deflection, Mattauch Herzog geometry, Jet
interface HR-ICPMS. In this course, we will present this innovative instrumentation.