Abstract

Laser-Induced Plasma Spectroscopy (LIPS) is a powerful instrument for quantitative elemental analysis of solid, liquid and gaseous matrices. For LIPS an intense, pulsed laser beam is focused on the sample of interest, resulting in the dissociation and partial ionisation of the sample in an expanding plasma cloud. Approximately 100 ns after the laser pulse recombination followed by relaxation of the atoms can be observed in the plasma cloud. The spectrally and temporally resolved detection of the atomic emission lines reveals analytical information about the elemental composition of a sample. The lack of sample preparation and the low costs for a single measurement make this technique a useful tool for environment analysis. The presented applications are excellent examples for the versatility of LIPS.

© 1996 Optical Society of America