>Why waste money!  Find a laser chemist or laser physist in your
>group/department and build the system yourself!
>
>Hal Karlsson

>Hal has an interesting point.  Is it really cheaper???  If so, how much
>cheaper is it???
>
Steve Nelson
"Intel Inside" is a warning label

As anyone who has tried this will know, contructing a good laser beam
delivery system is straightforward; all you then have to do is get the
reaction chemistry,  gas cleanup, system blanks, quantitative yields and
system artefacts  sorted out. That can take man-years and hundreds of
analyses to tie down! Colin Macpherson among others might testify to this
(won't you Colin!).

The do-it-yourself equation must include the  salary component for
contruction and testing (2 years is not unreasonable), and loss of income
when the mass spec is tied up running endless standards. Without going into
details the equation comes close to balancing.

The plug-and-play option has its attractions. As Steve says it all depends
on how much you value your time and how long you are prepared to stall your
research program  waiting for good data.

Dave



Dave Mattey

Geology Department, Royal Holloway College, University of London, Egham
Hill, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX

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