Atomisation-excitation source:

The limitation of flame as an atomisation-excitation source led to the development of high temperature sources for atomic emission spectrometry. Historically, flame emission spectrometry (FES) was followed by emission spectrometry based on electric arc and electric spark as the atomisation-excitation source. Those were better than FES as these allowed simultaneous determination of a number of elements. However, these were not suited to measurement of analytes in solution and provided very complex spectra. Today, high frequency inductively coupled plasma and microwave plasma sources are used for routine work in practically all large analytical laboratories. Consequently, the atomic emission spectrometry has emerged to be a successful technique for multielement analyses. A development of those high energy sources is matched through the developments in the spectrometer design. We would learn about the AES technique based on plasma sources.