| Abstract: | The width of the 193.7 nm line of arsenic has been measured for a commercial hollow cathode lamp (HCL), a pumped hollow cathode lamp and a commercial electrodeless discharge lamp (EDL). The measurements were made using an echelle spectrometer and operating the lamps under a wide range of conditions. The line widths for the commercial HCL and for the EDL were found to be 0.91 pm (9.10 mÅ) and 0.895 pm (8.95 mÅ) respectively when operated under the recommended unpulsed operating conditions, and the EDL line was seven times as intense as that from the HCL. When the lamps were pulsed, the widths of the lines increased to 1.009 pm (10.09 mÅ) in the case of the HCL and to 0.904 pm (9.04 mÅ) for the EDL. The arsenic HCL, with neon as a carrier gas, suffers from severe spectral interference which arises from the presence of the 193.89 nm and 193.01 nm Ne II lines. This could account for most of the curvature of the absorbance-vs-concentration calibration curve. |
