LIBS: a hot and upcoming technology for the next decade and beyond.
Posted by GT on 04 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Laser News
We’ve been getting high amounts of interest this year from customers requiring lasers for LIBS applications. LIBS stands for “Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy.” LIBS is a hot application currently being utilized by many companies, particularly in the security sector. LIBS can be used for sniffing out low levels of explosive and radioactive compounds. Such compounds pose significant public safely risks when used by terrorist organizations. LIBS systems are experiencing popularity in other mainstream sectors and can be used to detect low levels of contaminant in samples, for quick determination of metal alloy compositions, and also for quick determination of gemstone authenticity.
A LIBS system works by applying a short duration laser pulse of approximately 7 ns to form a micro-plasma on the surface of the sample. The plasma has a peak temperature of between 10,000 and 20,000-degree K. The plasma emits a flash of light which has spectral lines corresponding to the elements present in the sample. A spectrograph collects the light and splits out the various spectral lines. A database embedded in software, or firmware, correlates the spectral lines to specific elements and quickly relays the elemental composition to the user. A readout device such as a monitor or a printer delivers the information to the user. The user can see the results in literally seconds from laser flash to display! No other low level detection technique compares.
The lasers we provide for LIBS systems are extremely portable and can easily be held in your hand. We feel LIBS’ ability to accurately detect parts-per-million levels of sample while in the field will enable the LIBS market to grow significantly in the next few years.
Competing X-ray detection techniques (AES or XRF) or ICP-OES (inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy) are more expensive and require delivering the sample to a laboratory. In the case of ICP-OES analysis a long and tedious sample preparation is required as well as calibration standards for quantitative results. LIBS is superior to X-ray techniques for detecting low levels of lighter elements such as lithium, beryllium, and boron, something X-ray techniques can’t do.
LIBS is clearly superior to older methods of elemental analysis. LIBS strengths are its portability, accuracy at ppm detection levels, ease of sample preparation, and low relative cost, making it ideally suited to field detection applications.