Glow-discharge spectrometry for direct analysis of thin and ultra-thin solid films

The emerging potential of glow-discharge (GD) spectroscopies for the analysis of thin films is examined. So far, this technique has not been explored fully to the point where it is generally accepted in the surface analysis community as a potential alternative to other better established techniques. However, the analytical features of GDs coupled to optical emission spectrometry (OES) and mass spectrometry (MS) show an important niche of applications in surface analysis for GD techniques. To show the state of the art, we present a variety of examples of depth-profiling analysis of thin and ultra-thin films using GDs coupled to OES and MS.