Tunable plasma sources in analytical spectroscopy: Current status and projections

While the developments in spectrochemical instrumentation have (for the most part) kept pace with the quantitative challenges of a diversity of applications, the qualitative aspects of spectrochemical analysis lag far behind. This is, of course, the principal challenge of ‘chemical speciation'. It seems clear at this point that a paradigm shift is in order if the atomic spectrometry community is to step up and solve the practical problems presented by biochemists, nutritionists, geologists, and environmental chemists. We present here an outline for progress in this area along with a summary of recent developments in the area of tunable plasma sources.