Definition of S/N Ratio
The signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio is often used as a yard-stick to measure the sensitivity of a GC/MS instrument. The S/N ratio will be described here. Note that practical detection limit is very difficult to estimate in general, because the limit depends on many factors: compounds, matrices of the samples, and so on.
![Definition of S/N Ratio](/sites/ssi.shimadzu.com/files/d7/ckeditor/an/support/gcms/10_2_2.gif)