On the Bottom Half

A mouthful of sciencey-ness.

Today I did something that was kind of cool: I laser-ablated some very scientific holes into two fusion discs!

Just kidding, but really, I used a machine called a Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer, or LA-ICPMS for short. The essence of the machine is that a moderately powerful laser beam is focused on a substrate where the laser energy then vapourises whatever is under the beam spot. Fusion discs are a leftover product from another analysis that determines the composition of a rock after first melting a small amount of rock powder, then fusing that melt onto a glass disc.

The idea behind the LA-ICPMS is that the sample material is vapourised in an inert gas environment (helium), which is then flushed into an analyser. You can control the width, energy, and pulse frequency of the laser beam. The ICPMS part is the analyser... if you really are still reading at this point, I'll explain it some other time if you are interested.

The laser is probably a second hand unit from a laser eye clinic that upgraded... see some science is environmentally friendly... we reuse!

Anyway, it is cool using expensive hardware that harnesses lasers and plasma arcs at several thousand degrees C. No sharks were harmed in the operation of this machine.

posted by Kyle @ 23:05