Microanalysis of ceramics with PIXE and LA-ICP-MS

The provenance postulate states that artifact raw material sources can be determined by chemical characterization as long as between-source chemical differences exceed within-source variation. For ceramics, successful differentiation of sources usually requires the measurement of a large suite of elements. While laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) can provide concentration data for nearly every element whose concentration is at or above 100 ng/g, it requires the use of “matrix matched” standards for quantitative analysis. In this work, we report on the use of micro-PIXE to develop standards for the microanalysis of ceramics by LA-ICP-MS.