MULTIELEMENT GLOW-DISCHARGE ATOMIC FLUORESCENCE USING CONTINUUM SOURCES

The glow discharge (GD) has been shown to be a useful atom source for the direct sputtering of solid samples for atomic fluorescence spectro metry. Conventional, broadband light sources have advantageous feature s for an inexpensive, GD atomic fluorescence spectrometry technique wi th capability for multi-element analysis. In this work, the xenon arc lamp and xenon flashlamp are used as spectral continuum sources. With these lamps, improvements in signal-to-background ratio (S/B) compared with GD atomic emission spectrometry were observed. Simultaneous puls ing of the GD and delaying of the flashlamp gives larger S/B ratios re sulting from a reduction in emission background.