Arsenic atoms sputtered from gallium arsenide wafers or arsenic‐dopedn‐type silicon wafers have been detected in argon plasmas using the laser‐induced fluorescence technique (LIF). Two methods of LIF detection were employed. One used a tunable, frequency‐doubled dye laser to pump a metastable transition of atomic arsenic at 228.81 nm. The second technique used the broadband output of an ArF excimer laser to pump a ground‐state transition of As at 193.76 nm.