The future of atomic absorption spectrometry: a continuum source with a charge coupled array detector

Continuum source atomic absorption spectrometry (CS-AAS) has made impressive progress in the last 5 years thanks to the availability of high resolution echelle spectrometers and solid state array detectors. With these new spectrometers and detectors, the capabilities of CS-AAS exceed those of conventional, line source-AAS (LS-AAS). For CS-AAS, absorbances are more accurate (corrected for stray radiation and non-specific broadband background absorption and integrated with respect to height in the furnace), detection limits average a factor of 2 lower, calibration ranges are a factor of 1000 greater, multi-wavelength data are available for correction of spectral interferences, sensitivity is a powerful quality assurance measure since it is independent of all instrument parameters except atomization temperature and, of course, multi-element detection is possible. The future appears bright for CS-AAS. Whereas, previously, CS-AAS was striving for parity with LS-AAS, it is now reasonable to state that it is CS-AAS which is setting the standard.