ABSTRACT
In AES, the sample is subjected to temperatures high enough to cause not only dissociation into atoms, but also significant amounts of collisional excitation (and ionization) of the sample atoms. Once the atoms and ions are in their excitation states, they can decay to lower states through thermal or radioactive (emission) energy transition. (See discussion of emission in Section 5.4.) In AES, the intensity of the light emitted is measured at specific wavelengths and used to determine the concentrations of the elements of interest.
