Observation |
I’/I value |
Example of collisional process |
Signal enhancement |
>1 |
Increase of ground state, e.g. suppression of ionization;
Increase in excited state, e.g., ion-electron collisional radiative recombination. |
Signal depression |
<1 |
Depopulation of ground state, e.g. charge transfer reactions;
Depopulation of excited state, e.g., collisional de-excitation |
No effect on signal |
1 |
No change in the populations of the ground and excited states of analyte atoms |
|