The Value of Collaboration
Few real breakthroughs are achieved without collaboration, and the Laser Ablation IRMS is a case in point according to Sercon Director Garry Armstrong and Damon Green, Business Unit Manager at Teledyne Photon Machines.
Damon is a geologist and understands the amount of sample prep and time typically required for analysis of hard and rock materials. “With this technique, you could take that week of lab work, all the aggressive chemicals and reduce that down to a few minutes, or hours of sample prep to generate far more useful data and useful in terms of spatial resolution primarily.”
First discussions started around 20 years ago with a UK group who were looking at tree rings and recognised that marrying a laser system to an IRMS could generate a higher spatial resolution quality of data. At the time, the challenge was that there wasn’t really a technology link between IRMS systems and the laser systems.
Fast forward to seven years ago, and a group in Finland, a customer of both Teledyne and Sercon approached us, keen to explore this further.
At this point, we brought Terra Analitic, a Romanian lab, into discussions. Led by Montana Puscas, they designed the sample chamber, which was field tested with the group in Helsinki as a true collaboration. And the three groups then essentially came together to develop the technique as it is today.
Damon explained the next steps: “So it was proven and iteratively improved in the field to a point where it was acceptable to the wider market. Some minor iterations since then, but fundamentally, it’s that system that creates the meaningful and reproducible data.”
Garry continued: “Bringing the three experts of the field together for that project was very effective, and we then formalised our collaboration and the demo lab in Romania was born.” He concluded: “Preliminary data suggests that this technique can equal or better EA in precision and sensitivity for a lot less time and sample prep and using a lot less sample (only a few nanometers of material at a time) so you can re-sample repeatedly.”
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