Characterisation of nano-particulate powder pellets

Matrix-matched reference materials are urgently needed for calibration and validation of (micro-)analytical data. It is desirable that these materials can be analyzed by different analytical techniques like LA-ICP-MS, LIBS, μ-XRF, EPMA, PIXE, SIMS etc. accomplishing a better definition of elemental and isotopic composition of materials and also allowing for systematic studies on elemental fractionation. Nano-particulate powder pellets have now been produced from a large variety of materials and shown to be of excellent homogeneity and cohesiveness enabling accurate and high precision determination of elemental composition by LA-ICP-MS with RSD <1-5% even at high spatial resolution with <32μm spot size (Garbe-Schönberg and Müller 2014). Here we present new data on particle size and surface roughness being quality criteria for micro-analytical techniques using electron (EPMA) or ion beams (PIXE, SIMS). We demonstrate homogeneity within and between pellets, and significantly improved accuracy after matrix-matched calibration with nano-pellets is shown for granite AC-E as an example. Meanwhile, nano-pellets are succesfully used also for LA-based Rb-Sr age determination (Karlsson et al., EWLA 2016) and Li-B isotopic studies (LeRoex et al., 2015) and were analysed by EPMA and LIBS.