Development of Element Assignment Program Based on Feature Quantity Extraction Method from Emission Spectra of Glow-Discharged Atomic Vapor Source Obtained with Czerny–Turner Spectrometer

To analyze the radioactive wastes produced by the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, we have been developing a laser absorption and emission spectroscopic system for sample screening. By the sputtering technique, neutral atomic vapor can be produced from a solid sample even if the chemical forms of the samples are complex. This system utilizes a DC glow-discharged hollow cathode atomic source that does not require an extensive chemical pretreatment. Although it is possible to perform emission spectroscopy for multi-element simultaneous analysis to clarify the elements of samples with this system, it takes much time to assign complex peaks of the samples. A program was developed for the rapid assignment of the emission spectra. We utilized a Czerny–Turner spectrometer, which has a low resolution power. The program written in Python could assign the large emission peaks because of the ease of signal discrimination.