Towards a catalogue of glow discharge emission spectra

Work has started on a new catalogue of glow discharge spectra. The motivation for this project, the contents of the future catalogue and its intended use are discussed, together with the methodology of the measurements, strategies for data acquisition and data processing. A high resolution Fourier transform (FT) spectrometer and two commercial CCD spectrometers will be used to collect the spectra. Preliminary data are presented for iron, showing the comparison of the CCD and FT spectra and the distribution of wavelength intervals between adjacent lines. Another example, concerning sensitive lines of copper, shows a possible use of the future catalogue to identify and evaluate line interferences and select the most suitable analytical lines for a given application.