A spectrochemical evaluation of afterglow discharge excitation sources

The afterglow discharge is a new excitation source for analytical spectroscopy. Such a discharge can be produced in diatomic (N2, O2, Cl2, etc.), triatomic (N2O), tetratomic (FN3, ClN3, ClNCO etc.) and the rare gases (He, Ar, etc.) under a variety of flow and pressure conditions. The primary mechanisms of excitation in such sources is through energy transfer from metastable species (τ > 0.5 msec) to titrant species. Typical energies and lifetimes of metastable species can range from 1.97 eV (0, 'D2) to 21.5 eV (He2, 3Σu+) and 1.76 msec (H2, C3IIu) to 150 min (He3S). In this presentation the current status and analytical potential of the afterglow discharge source will be elaborated on