Emission spectral analysis with the glow discharge source and a resonance detector

A Grimm-type glow discharge lamp was found to have emission lines which are narrow enough to allow the advantageous use of resonance detection. Design of a cathodic sputtering cell which has an exchangeable cathode is described. The fluorescence signal from this lamp was detected electronically by either a synchronous (lock-in) detection system or a dual-gated integration (boxcar) system. It was found that the dual-gated system improved detection limits by a factor of 50 over the synchronous detection system. Calibration curves for copper in aluminium and silver in gold were found to be linear from the detection limit (about 1 ppm for both elements) up to approximately 20% in the case of copper in aluminium, and 5% silver in gold. Reproducibility of signal measurements was 1%.