Plasma produced by a 355 nm pulsed Nd:YAG laser with a pulse duration of 6 ns focussed onto a copper solid sample in air at atmospheric pressure is studied spectroscopically. The temperature and electron density characterizing the plasma are measured by time-resolved spectroscopy of neutral atom and ion line emissions in the time window of 300–2000 ns. An echelle spectrograph coupled with a gated intensified charge coupled detector is used to record the plasma emissions. The temperature is obtained using the Boltzmann plot method and the electron density is determined using the Saha– Boltzmann equation method. Both parameters are studied as a function of delay time with respect to the onset of the laser pulse. The results are discussed. The time window where the plasma is optically thin and is also in local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE), necessary for the laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) analysis of samples, is deduced from the temporal evolution of the intensity ratio of two Cu I lines. It is found to be 700–1000 ns.

It is a well-known fact that laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has emerged as one of the best analytical techniques for multi-elemental compositional analysis of samples. We report assembling and optimization of LIBS set up using high resolution and broad-range echelle spectrograph coupled to an intensified charge coupled device (ICCD) to detect and quantify trace elements in environmental and clinical samples. Effects of variations of experimental parameters on spectroscopy signals of copper and brass are reported. Preliminary results of some plasma diagnostic calculations using recorded time-resolved optical emission signals are also reported for brass samples.

The application of calibration-free laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (CF-LIBS) for quantitative analysis of materials, illustrated by CF-LIBS applied to a brass sample of known composition, is presented in this paper. The LIBS plasma is produced by a 355 nm pulsed Nd:YAG laser with a pulse duration of 6 ns focussed onto a brass sample in air at atmospheric pressure. The time-resolved atomic and ionic emission lines of Cu and Zn from the LIBS spectra recorded by an Echelle spectrograph coupled with a gated intensified charge coupled detector are used for the plasma characterization and the quantitative analysis of the sample. The time delay where the plasma is optically thin and is also in local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE), necessary for the elemental analysis of samples from the LIBS spectra, is deduced. An algorithm relating the experimentally measured spectral intensity values with the basic physics of the plasma is developed. Using the algorithm, the Zn and Cu concentratioins in the brass sample are determined. The analytical result obtained from the CF-LIBS technique agree well with the certified valued of the elements in the sample, with an accuracy error < 1%

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an emerging analytical technique with numerous advantages such as rapidity, multi-elemental analysis, minimal sample preparation, minimal destruction, low cost and versatility of being applied to a wide range of materials. In this paper, we report the preliminary observations we obtained using LIBS for clinical and environmental samples. Elemental analysis has been done qualitatively in human teeth samples which show encouraging results. It has also been demonstrated in this paper that LIBS can be very well utilized in field applications such as plastic waste sorting and recycling.