Near-ultraviolet femtosecond laser ionization of dioxins in gas chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Gas chromatography/multiphoton ionization/time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC/MPI/TOF-MS) was applied to the trace analysis of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs). To determine the optimum wavelength for analysis of PCDD/Fs, the wavelength of the femtosecond laser utilized for multiphoton ionization was converted to near-ultraviolet status using stimulated Raman scattering. A femtosecond laser emitting at 300 nm completely eliminated the background signal arising from the bleeding compounds generated from a stationary phase of the capillary column in GC.