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The development of a new, very small coaxial plasma source based on the microwave plasma torch (MPT) is described. It generates a plasma jet up to 4 mm long and can be operated with a argon gas flow rate less than 70 ml per min at down to 2 W microwave power (2.45 GHz) at atmospheric pressure. It also works well with helium and does not show any wear during a test period of 30 h of operation with argon. It is, in particular, thought to be a source for the atomic spectroscopy of gaseous species. The excitation temperature is found to be ∼4700 K for this device operating with helium and 17 W microwave power. A detection limit for an example application in which Cl is detected from HCCl3 is found to be below 66 ppb.
Stonies et al. (Tue,) studied this question.