Glow-discharge sampling applications

Applications of glow-discharge sampling in combination with spectrometries... 

The ion source is an essential component of all mass spectrometers where the ionization of a gaseous, liquid or solid sample takes place. In inorganic mass spectrometry, several ion sources, based on different evaporation and ionization processes, such as spark ion source, glow discharge ion source, laser ion source (non-resonant and resonant), secondary ion source, sputtered neutral ion source and inductively coupled plasma ion source, have been employed for a multitude of quite different application fields (see Chapter 9). 

This chapter deals exclusively with the methods that have been developed for the direct solids analysis of nonconductive samples by glow discharge mass spectrometry. The basic approaches to operation and sample preparation for the three primary methodologies of compaction, secondary cathode, and radio frequency powering are described. Examples of source performance and practical applications of each are taken from the analytical literature. Whereas this chapter de-... 

This chapter deals with optical atomic, emission spectrometry (AES). Generally, the atomizers listed in Table 8-1 not only convert the component of samples to atoms or elementary ions but, in the process, excite a fraction of these species to higher electronic stales.. 4, the excited species rapidly relax back to lower states, ultraviolet and visible line spectra arise that are useful for qualitative ant quantitative elemental analysis. Plasma sources have become, the most important and most widely used sources for AES. These devices, including the popular inductively coupled plasma source, are discussedfirst in this chapter. Then, emission spectroscopy based on electric arc and electric spark atomization and excitation is described. Historically, arc and spark sources were quite important in emission spectrometry, and they still have important applications for the determination of some metallic elements. Finally several miscellaneous atomic emission source.s, including jlanies, glow discharges, and lasers are presented. 

An atomizer based on glow discharge techniques is commercially available for the analysis of solid metal samples by AAS. It will be discussed in the applications sections under solid sample analysis. 

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