Direct Analysis of Solids by Spectrometric Techniques

Advantages brought about by the direct analysis of solid samples as compared with the analysis of dissolved samples include a shorter total analysis time (prior dissolution steps are not required), low cost (chemical reagents are not used), less risk of contamination and less destruction of the sample. In addition, some techniques can extract information about chemical speciation e.g. XPS provides information about oxidation states and chemical bonds) and spatial composition, i.e. information with lateral resolution allowing mapping of the surface and analysis with depth resolution, of particular interest for thin-film analysis. 

A few representative and widely used techniques based on optical and mass spectrometry for direct solid analysis have been selected for further explanation here. As was stated in the introductory section (see Section 1.1), analytical 

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