1. Definitions

Among the multitude of terms referring to the detection capabilities of an analytical method, it is necessary here to define three in order to facilitate the reading of this article: the decision threshold, the detection limit and the quantification limit. For the same reason, we feel it useful to define five additional terms: measurement value, measurement result, accumulation, average and measurement uncertainty.

For the sake of brevity, it has been decided to present only one definition for each term. This definition, generally taken from standards, does not replace the official definitions published in normative documents where these exist, but aims to explain the concept or principle associated with the notion presented.