Vaporisation characteristics and detection limits of ion beam thermography

Analytical properties of the chemical speciation method, Ion beam thermography (IBT), have been investigated. IBT combines the multi-elemental ion beam techniques PIXE, PESA, pNRA and cPESA with thermography. During thermography the sample temperature is gradually increased, causing vaporisation of chemical compounds at specific temperatures and the sample at the same time undergoes analysis by the above-mentioned techniques. The characteristic vaporisation temperature (CVT) and the stoichiometric relations between the elements vaporised at that temperature, identify the chemical compounds. This work describes the reproducibility of the method, the dependence of the rate of temperature increase, the dependence of the sample thickness and the influence from aerosol particle size on the CVT. In addition the minimum detectable mass changes for IBT analysis of marine and continental aerosols were estimated by calculation for major and minor elements.