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Development of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for microanalysis applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2008

Y. Godwal*
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
M.T. Taschuk
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
S.L. Lui
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
Y.Y. Tsui
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
R. Fedosejevs
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Y. Godwal, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2V4, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy is a fast non-contact technique for the analysis of the elemental composition of any sample. Our focus is to advance this technique into a regime where we use pulse energies below 100 µJ. This regime is referred to as micro-laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy or µLIBS. At present we have concentrated on two application areas : (1) The imaging of latent fingerprints and (2) the extension to laser ablation followed by laser-induced fluorescence (LA-LIF) for very high sensitivity analysis of contaminants in water. Preliminary pulse emission scaling of Na in latent fingerprints has been investigated for ~130 fs, 266 nm pulses with energies below 15 µJ. The lowest energy for reliable single shot detection of Na is approximately 3.5 µJ. A 2D map of a fingerprint on a Si wafer has been successfully demonstrated using 5 µJ pulses. In LA-LIF the detection sensitivity of micro-laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (µLIBS) is improved by coupling it with a second resonant probe pulse. This technique was investigated for the detection of Pb at low concentrations when ablated by 266 nm, 170 µJ pulses. After a short delay the resulting plume was re-excited with a nanosecond laser pulse tuned to a specific transition of Pb. In the case of the resonant dual-pulse LIBS the limit of detection was found to be approximately 60 ppb for Pb in water for 1000 shots. It is expected that this result could be implemented with fiber or microchip lasers with multi-kHz repetition rates and fiber Bragg grating tuning elements. The results are promising for the development of portable µLIBS water monitoring systems and portable fingerprint scanners.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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