Among other advantages over their traditional, full-size counterparts, micro-plasmas present the possibility of cost savings due to a reduction in the flow-rate of expensive plasma support gases such as argon or helium. Despite their advantages, micro-plasmas are not often used because they cannot handle the relatively large sample loads produced by the traditional pneumatic nebulization sample introduction systems typically used in full-size plasmas when analyzing liquid samples. This paper describes steps taken to couple an in-torch vaporization (ITV) "dry" sample introduction system to a dc micro-plasma (which has been designed around a micro-fluidics micro-channel) for use in environmental analysis of liquid micro-samples by atomic emission spectrometry (AES).

Date Published: 26 February 2001
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 4205, Advanced Environmental and Chemical Sensing Technology, (26 February 2001); doi: 10.1117/12.417467

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4205:
Advanced Environmental and Chemical Sensing Technology
Tuan Vo-Dinh; Stephanus Buettgenbach, Editor(s)