Photo courtesy of Timothy Mock.

Anat Shahar's Nu Plasma II mass spectrometer arrived on campus this week and is currently being installed in DTM's Mass Spectrometry Laboratory on the ground floor of the Cyclotron Building. Built by Nu Instruments in the United Kingdom, the Nu Plasma II is a multi-collector inductively coupled plasma (MC-ICPMS) mass spectrometer that will be used to measure a number of different isotopic systems including iron, silicon, and sulfur in experimental and natural samples. Funding for the Nu Plasma II was provided by the Geophysical Laboratory. Scientists from both GL and DTM are welcome to use the Nu Plasma II, as well as the Nu Plasma HR that was installed in 2009, to measure high-precision isotopic ratios in both solutions and in-situ solid materials when coupled to the DTM excimer laser.

First light on the Nu Plasma II on 14 July at 3:26 pm EST. The first isotope scan of 40Ar is shown, courtesy of Tim Mock.