Editing Final Report/Thesis 2018 (section)

===Mass Spectrometer Experiment===
====Capturing the data====
The quartz slide was placed into two stabilisers, which was then installed into the machine. This machine did the laser ablation on the hair samples. Figure 16 displays the quartz slide with the hair samples, installed into the laser ablation system. While Figure 17 displays the enlarged version of the quartz slide on the monitor.
[[File:ZFigure20.jpg|thumb|500px|center|Figure 16. Hair samples installed into the laser ablation system]]
[[File:ZFigure21.jpg|thumb|500px|center|Figure 17. Laser ablation system with monitor]]
Next to the laser ablation system, there are two monitors which will be used for the laser ablation task. The left monitor records the data of the laser ablation and the right monitor controls the laser ablation system, this can be seen in Figure 18. The next step involved choosing how many spots of the hair we want ablated and the distance between these spots. A spot is where the laser will ablate the hair and the isotopes will be recorded for that spot. It was chosen to ablate the hair about half way (1cm), which gave 11 spots at about 800 micro meters apart, two of these spots were located in the root. The mass spectrometer will then document the chosen isotopes. The complete set up of the experiment is shown in Figure 19, with the laser ablation system on the left and the mass spectrometer on the right.
[[File:ZFigure22.jpg|thumb|500px|center|Figure 18. Recording the data (left) and controlling the laser ablation machine (right)]]
[[File:ZFigure23.jpg|thumb|500px|center|Figure 19. Agilent 7900x mass spectrometer with attached New Wave NWR213 laser ablation system]]

====Processing the Data====
The data from the ICP-MS was then put into a software called Iolite, this is how we managed the data and removed any anomalies [29]. The overall waveform of the isotopes in the hair sample for several spots can be seen in Figure 20. An enhanced and zoomed in version of one of the spots is shown in Figure 21.
[[File:ZFigure23.jpg|thumb|500px|center|Figure 20. Waveform of the isotopes in several spots]]
[[File:ZFigure24.jpg|thumb|500px|center|Figure 21. Enhanced and zoomed into a spot]]
A brief explanation of the waveform composition will be done. Each waveform is an individual isotope, where the top waveform is the average of all the other waveforms. The first 20 seconds of the waveform, shows a relative flat line, this is the laser ablation system calibrating itself. This information is not useful. The waveform peaks up (represented with a square box), this is when the laser just hits the surface of the hair. Then the waveform is a flat line, this is when the laser is ablating the inside of the hair. This is the important information. In some cases the waveform peaks up at the end, this is the laser ablating through the hair and onto the sticky tape and quartz slide.
To compare the results more precisely, two sets of data were captured, the surface of the hair and inside the hair. Only getting these results, meant there was so contamination from the sticky tape or the calibration set up. Lastly the results were outputted into one comprehensive Excel file, with all the necessary data, a portion of the data can be seen in Figure 22. 
[[File:ZFigure25.jpg|thumb|500px|center|Figure 22. Portion of the data]]