Elemental Quantitative Distribution and Statistical Analysis on Cross Section of Stainless Steel Sheet by Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

An innovative application of laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) technique in illustrating elemental distributions on stainless steel sheets was presented. The technique proved to be a systematic and accurate approach in producing visual images or maps of elemental distributions at cross-sectional surface of a stainless steel sheet. Two stainless steel sheets served as research objects: 3 mm×1 300 mm hot-rolled stainless steel plate and 1 mm×1 260 mm cold-rolled plate. The cross-sectional surfaces of the two samples at 1/4 position along the width direction were scanned (raster area −44 mm2 and 11 mm2) with a focused laser beam (wavelength 213 nm, diameter of laser crater 100 μm, and laser power 1.6 mJ) in a laser ablation chamber. The laser ablation system was coupled to a quadrupole ICP-MS, which made the detection of ion intensities of 27Al+, 44Ca+, 47Ti+, 55Mn+ and 56Fe+ within an area of interest possible. One-dimensional (1D) content line distribution maps and two-dimensional (2D) contour maps for specific positions or areas were plotted to indicate the element distribution of a target area with high accuracy. Statistic method was used to analyze the acquired data by calculating median contents, maximum segregation, statistic segregation and content-frequency distribution.