LOW-POWER NITROGEN AND CARBON-DIOXIDE INDUCTIVELY COUPLED PLASMAS FOR SPECTROCHEMICAL ANALYSIS

In recent years the application of the inductively coupled plasma (ICP) has been extended to plasma source mass spectrometry, as well as to gas, high-performance liquid, and supercritical fluid chromatography. This note describes the generation of low-power nitrogen and carbon dioxide ICP discharges operated at 40.68 MHz under conventional conditions for spectrochemical analysis. Because these nitrogen and carbon dioxide ICP discharges may provide unique spectrochemical results, a preliminary description of the torch geometry and discharge operations as well as the plasma background spectra are reported.