Review: laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) a promising technique, its limitations and a proposed method

Abstract

Laser Induced Breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an extremely potential spectroscopic analytical tool. A highly focused laser bean stiochiometerically ablates the surface of the material in the form of a plasma plume. Excited species in the plasma plume emit their characteristic wavelengths upon de-excitation which are collected, dispersed and analyzed for qualitative and quantitative analyses. Basic LIBS setup includes a laser, target sample, optical fiber and a spectrometer. However it has been used in different configurations like single-pulse and double pulse configurations. LIBS has several advantages over other currently practiced analytical techniques in terms of higher resolution, better limit of detection (LOD), negligible sample preparation etc. Despite of all these advantages it is suffering from poor accuracy and reproducibility of results due to uncontrolled atmosphere around the targeted sample and variations in other experimental parameters. In order to improve reliability of LIBS in terms of accuracy and reproducibility we have designed a methodology for experimentation under controlled environmental conditions inside an especially designed ablation chamber. We will make use of multiple simultaneous laser pulses, which are supposed to play a significant role in improving the analytical accuracy of LIBS particularly for non homogeneous samples. In this article we will briefly review the basics of LIBS, its types, common instrumentations, advantages, limitations applications and at the end our proposed methodology.