General view of Dr. N. Quickert injecting a sample prepared from airborne particulate matter into the tube of a Perkin-Elmer heated graphite atomizer (HGA) in order to determine the sample's cadmium content. The laboratory where the analysis is being conducted is unidentified. Per notations accompanying the photograph, the atomizer allows analysts to detect trace metals down to billionths of a gram, greatly increasing the sensitivity of atomic absorption methods.