5. Conclusion – Outlook and expected developments

In recent years, glow discharge optical emission spectrometry has been uniquely positioned as a technique for rapid profiling of both thin and thick layers. The hoped-for developments could focus on improving sensitivity, and introducing non-intrusive sensors that would give more real-time information on the plasma, which changes with each layer traversed. These developments would then enable even more accurate interpretation of the results obtained.

Finally, the widespread use of numerical techniques for processing results, which are very common in other methods but still too little used in GDOES today, could further extend its field of application and naturally "force" it to meet new challenges.