Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) based analytical techniques can quantitatively measure bulk elemental composition of a material.
In plasma emission spectroscopy (OES), a sample solution is introduced into the core of an inductively coupled argon plasma (ICP), which generates temperatures on the order of 9,000K. At these temperatures, analyte atoms and ions become thermally excited and emit light at their characteristic wavelengths. This light
is focused on to the entrance slit of the spectrometer and passes through a diffraction grating that resolves the light into a spectrum of its constituent wavelengths. Within the spectrometer, this diffracted light is then separated and collected by wavelength and amplified to yield an intensity measurement that can be converted to an elemental concentration by comparison with calibration standards.