3 dimensional emission profiles of an ICP

It is well known that the emission intensities for different elements exhibit different spacial maxima in the ICP. Even for a single element, the various ionic and atomic emission transitions exhibit different spacial patterns. Usually a single compromise viewing position is chosen for most determinations of elemental concentrations. With the advent of commercially available, sophisticated instrumentation and low cost computers, the data acquisition for spacial profiling can be accomplished quickly and inexpensively. The purpose of this paper is to detail a method of obtaining such profile data and to present results suggesting that detection limits are not significantly improved by utilizing individually optimized viewing positions