Influence of UO crystal orientation on laser ablation performance.

Crystallographic orientation dependence deteriorates the performance of surface analysis methods such as secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and focused ion beam (FIB). This study explores the corresponding potential challenges of laser ablation (LA) as a powerful sampling tool for inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). To this end, three UO single crystals of different orientation as well as polycrystalline UO were produced and characterized.