Abstract:
A glow discharge mass spectrometry device and method, the device including a glow discharge lamp (1), gas flow-injection elements, the glow discharge lamp being suitable for forming an ablation plasma in the presence of a plasma gas, and a mass spectrometer. The device further includes heating elements (30, 31) suitable for heating a gas flow (38) upstream of a cell (2), the gas flow-injection elements being suitable for injecting into the glow discharge cell a gas flow (38) heated to a temperature T for a duration D, and pumping elements (7, 27) being designed to pump a flow of gaseous species (17, 37) out of the cell for the duration D, so as to decontaminate the surface of the sample (4) and/or the inner walls of the glow discharge cell (2) before an ablation plasma (5) is ignited.
Abstract:
A system and a process for measuring, by glow discharge spectrometry, the elemental and/or molecular chemical composition of an organic solid sample (10). The sample (10) is positioned so as to seal a glow discharge plasma reactor (2), a gaseous mixture including at least one inert gas and gaseous oxygen is injected into the reactor (2), the concentration of gaseous oxygen being between 0.1% and 15% by weight of the gaseous mixture, an electric discharge of radiofrequency type is applied to the electrodes of the plasma reactor (2) in order to generate a glow discharge plasma, and the solid sample (10) is exposed to the plasma so as to etch an erosion crater in the solid sample (10); at least one signal representative of an ionized species of negative charge is selected and measured using a mass spectrometer (4).
Abstract:
A glow discharge spectrometry system includes a glow discharge lamp suitable for receiving a solid sample (10) and forming a glow discharge etching plasma (19). The system (100) for measuring in situ the depth of the erosion crater generated by etching of the sample (10) includes an optical separator (3), optical elements (4) suitable for directing a first incident beam (21) toward a first zone (11) of the sample, the first zone being exposed to the etching plasma, and a second incident beam (22) toward a second zone (12) of the same side of the sample, the second zone being protected from the etching plasma, respectively, and an optical recombining device (3) suitable for forming an interferometric beam (30) so as to determine the depth (d) of the erosion crater.