Room 1

It often becomes necessary to explicate elements present in electronic materials, ceramics, and superconductive materials in the research and development of advanced materials, infinitesimal amount of metallic elements existing in organism samples, and elements existing in the circumstances such as water, soil, and atmosphere. Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) is useful for these purposes. This technique makes possible both qualitative and quantitative analysis in a wide range from a trace of to a high concentration of many elements.

In ICP, a radiofrequency induction coil is used to heat argon ions in an argon gas stream to temperatures of 6,000-10,000 K. Such high temperatures of plasmas lead to a high degree of atomic excitation and thus, to a high sensitivity for detection. As a result, a linear response from 0.1 ppb or below to 1000 ppm or more is easily realized without change of operating conditions. The high temperatures also ensure that virtually all compounds are broken down to their constituent elements and thus, the matrix effects and the background interference from molecular species, which are so often a problem in other atomic spectroscopies, are largely eliminated.

The wavelength of the emission lines can be used to identify a element, and the intensity of the emission line is proportional to the number of the atoms undergoing the corresponding transition. Thus, the detection of emission intensities at a particular wavelength can be used to determine the concentration of the analytes in solution. Over seventy elements, including some non-metal elements such as boron, carbon, silicon, phosphorus, and sulfur, can be detected and analyzed by ICP-AES.

ICP-AES spectrometer (Leeman Labs, Inc., type PS-1000UV)