Spatial and spectral imaging of plasma excitation sources

The imaging polychromator used in this study has been shown to have good flat-field response and no observable coma or astigmatism. In addition, it is simple and rugged. The polychromator is also the first commercially available instrument specifically designed to be interfaced with both linear and area array detectors. With the coupling of these two technologies, the rapid and sensitive detection afforded by the CCD detectors, along with the computer-aided data manipulation, provides an advantage in image array processing. Although the resolution of this polychromator system limits its application in atomic emission spectroscopy, the resolution is acceptable for molecular fluorescence and UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy. The spatial fidelity of the system can be used in multidimensional luminescence or to monitor several sources with a single polychromator.