Inductively-coupled plasma volume mainly responsible for emission of analytically-useful light because processes leading to excited species, such as droplet desolvation, element vaporization, atomization (or ionization) and excitation have been completed.
Source:
PAC, 2021, 93, 647. 'Glossary of methods and terms used in analytical spectroscopy (IUPAC Recommendations 2019)' on page 726 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2019-0203)