Organometallic compounds, also known as precursors in the semiconductor industry, are widely used for the atomic layer deposition process, which can generate very thin film structures in advanced manufacturing processes. Much of the literature discusses how trace metal contamination can seriously impact the performance of the final electronic device. However, the analyzing trace contaminants in high-purity materials presents a particular challenge due to the high matrix levels and the need to determine impurities at the trace level.

In the semiconductor industry, the material price is proportional to its purity; in addition, the precursors used in advanced manufacturing processes require high quality, and even very low impurity concentration on certificate reports, which resulted from the polyatomic interference, would catch the user’s attention. The interference from spectral overlap with isobaric and polyatomic species hinders the accurate analysis and affects the judgment of sample purity.

Previously, high-resolution ICP-MS(m/Δm up to 10000) was the best choice for solving these kinds of analytical problems. However, we found that some interference required much higher resolution, which exceeded the capability of the existing HR-ICP-MS. Then, a high dilution factor is necessary, and this action sacrifices the detection limit.

ICP-MS/MS combined with collision/reaction gases has been widely used to eliminate interferences. In this study, a high-concentration matrix of hafnium, zirconium, and titanium was used to test the capability of Agilent’s ICP-QQQ to reduce the concentration of overlapping isotopes of different elements from several hundred ppm to a single ppt level.