Patent ID: 7869968

Claim:
A diagnostic system for diagnosing the device properties attributed to the plasma state of an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer with which an aerosol comprising carrier gas and liquid drops containing an analysis sample is introduced into a plasma torch disposed near a work coil connected to a high-frequency power source in order to generate plasma, in such a way that it contains ions of the element in the aerosol, toward an interface having an orifice such that part of the components that form the plasma are allowed to pass through the orifice and are introduced into the mass analysis part, said diagnostic system comprising: an aggregate of parameter combinations is stored, which is an aggregate of combinations of parameters consisting of a first parameter for determining the output of the high-frequency power source, a second parameter for determining the flow rate of the carrier gas in the aerosol, and a third parameter for determining the distance between the plasma torch and the interface, and which forms a specific array such that the measurement points corresponding to the respective combinations are lined up in order along the direction of length of an envelope that forms the end on the high-sensitivity side of a graph drawn as an aggregate of all measurement points on a sensitivity-oxide ion ratio graph, and a diagnostic measurement is performed with a specific diagnostic sample using the parameter value of each combination of said parameter combinations that form the aggregate such that the device properties can be confirmed from the position on the envelope on the sensitivity-oxide ion ratio graph of the actual measurement points corresponding to each combination.