Understanding the source of signal fuctuations in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy analytical applications
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https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-020-1018-9
Front. Phys. 16(2), 22503 (2021)
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT
Understanding the source of signal fluctuations in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy analytical applications A recent paper [1] by the group of Prof. Zhe Wang, Beijing, China reveals the physical mechanism responsible of the signal fluctuations in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy analysis. Vincenzo Palleschi Applied and Laser Spectroscopy Laboratory, Institute of Chemistry of Organometallic Compounds, Research Area of CNR, Via G. Moruzzi, 1–56124 Pisa, Italy E-mail: [email protected]
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xactly 20 years ago, today, I officially started the First International Conference on Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), in Pisa, Italy. This event gathered, for the first time, the LIBS community in an International Conference and gave a substantial boost to the research on the spectroscopic study of Laser-Induced Plasmas [2], as well as to a number of applications, ranging from industrial diagnostics [3], environmental studies [4], biomedicine [5], cultural heritage [6], etc.. In fact, the LIBS technique has many unique characteristics, including the robustness and simplicity of the equipment and the capability of operating without any treatment of the samples, which makes it the election technique for in situ applications [7]. On the other hand, the laboratory analytical applications of LIBS did not grow at the same rate of the out-of-the-lab applications; the LIBS plasmas are far from ideal for spectroanalytical measurements: they are non-stationary, non-homogeneous and out of thermal equilibrium [8] for most of their lifetime. Self-absorption [9] and matrix effects make difficult the correlation of the line emission intensity with the concentration of the analyte(s), and the use of the laser for both ablation and excitation of the sample material limits strongly the possibility of optimizing separately the two processes. The minimal quantity of mass analysed in a single measurement reflects in strong signal fluctuations and high Limits of Detection for most of the elements of applicative interest. In the last 20 years, several important studies have pointed out the need for a better understanding of the
*Received October 12, 2020. This article can also be found at
http://journal.hep.com.cn/fop/EN/10.1007/s11467-020-1018-9.
mechanism of laser-sample and laser-plasma interaction aimed to improving the performances of the LIBS technique in the laboratory. In 1998, the group of Prof. Sabsabi in Canada proposed the idea of using a sequence of pulses [10] for improving the signal-to-background ratio in LIBS analysis. In 1999, we proposed in Pisa a new method for standard-less LIBS analysis, called Calibration-Free LIBS (CF-LIBS) [11–13], to overcome matrix and self-absorption effects. More recently, in 2013 the group of Prof. De Giacomo in Bari, Italy, developed the idea of using metallic nanoparticles [14,15] for enhancing the LIBS signal and improving its analytical performances. These three key improvem
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