A new way of organising spectral line intensity ratio fluctuations

Abstract

A new method for organising spectral line intensity ratio fluctuations has been developed to determine which line pair of analysis is more or less stable for repeated measurements. A linear graph was obtained for iron lines when the spectral line intensity ratio fluctuations were plotted versus the photon energies of these lines. When these fluctuations were plotted versus the upper energies instead, a non-linear arrangement was observed. Therefore, non-linearity was obtained with the conventional intensity equation incorporating the Boltzmann exponent, but linearity was observed if exp(–hv_mn/kT) was used instead. The same result was also achieved for absolute intensities of iron lines using intensity tables (NBS) from d.c. arc measurements with photographic registration.

The light source used in this work was an inductively coupled plasma with a slot-type nebuliser system. The analyses were carried out using a computerised image dissector échelle spectrometer system.