Patent ID: 8559004

Claim:
An apparatus of emission spectroscopy for analyzing a deformable sample comprising: (a) a lower electrode which is flat and has an extended surface area for holding a sample to be excited thereon; (b) an upper rod electrode which has a predetermined tip pointing to but spaced apart the flat surface of said lower electrode; (c) a spark gap defined by the distance between the tip of said upper electrode and a position beneath on the flat surface of said lower electrode, whereby an induced spark ball will be localized at a predefined small area on the flat surface of said lower electrode; (d) a spectrometer assembly with a predetermined integration time configured to aim at said spark gap for collecting and registering an emission with at least one wavelength generated solely from said position; (e) means for providing horizontal motion to one of said electrodes along at least one dimension, at a predetermined speed, and following a predefined scan route in order for the spark ball to scan over the flat surface area on said lower electrode and for said spectrometer assembly to collect a plurality of emissions generated on said scan route; (f) means for correlating said plurality of emissions to the scanned positions on said scan route and for individually evaluating an emission contribution from each of said scanned positions.