Review: Miniature dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) in analytical atomic spectrometry

The development of miniature, sensitive, high throughput, and in-situ analytical instruments has been becoming developing field of modern analytical chemistry. Due to its unique advantages such as easy operation, simple configuration, ambient working temperature and pressure, low power consumption, and miniature dimension, dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) has always been a hot topic in analytical chemistry. This review gives an overview of miniature DBD application in analytical atomic spectrometry, starting with an introduction to its geometrical configuration and ionization mechanisms. Then, its applications such as excitation or atomization sources in atomic emission spectrometry (AES), atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) and atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS) are reviewed. Also, its application as vapor generation system in atomic spectrometry is discussed.