Mass Spectrometric Investigation of Silicon Extremely Enriched in 28Si: From 28SiF4 (Gas Phase IRMS) to 28Si Crystals (MC-ICP-MS)

Abstract

A new generation of silicon crystals even further enriched in (28)Si (x((28)Si) > 0.999 98 mol/mol), recently produced by companies and institutes in Russia within the framework of a project initiated by PTB, were investigated with respect to their isotopic composition and molar mass M(Si). A modified isotope dilution mass spectrometric (IDMS) method treating the silicon as the matrix containing a so-called virtual element (VE) existing of the isotopes (29)Si and (30)Si solely and high resolution multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) were applied in combination. This method succeeds also when examining the new materials holding merely trace amounts of (29)Si (x((29)Si) ≈ 5 × 10(-6) mol/mol) and (30)Si (x((30)Si) ≈ 7 × 10(-7) mol/mol) extremely difficult to detect with lowest uncertainty. However, there is a need for validating the enrichment in (28)Si already in the precursor material of the final crystals, silicon tetrafluoride (SiF4) gas prior to crystal production. For that purpose, the isotopic composition of selected SiF4 samples was determined using a multicollector magnetic sector field gas-phase isotope ratio mass spectrometer. Contaminations of SiF4 by natural silicon due to storing and during the isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) measurements were observed and quantified. The respective MC-ICP-MS measurements of the corresponding crystal samples show-in contrast-several advantages compared to gas phase IRMS. M(Si) of the new crystals were determined to some extent with uncertainties urel(M) < 1 × 10(-9). This study presents a clear dependence of the uncertainty urel(M(Si)) on the degree of enrichment in (28)Si. This leads to a reduction of urel(M(Si)) during the past decade by almost 3 orders of magnitude and thus further reduces the uncertainty of the Avogadro constant NA which is one of the preconditions for the redefinition of the SI unit kilogram.

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