Analyses of Plasmas Produced by Laser Ablation of Fresh Aliments

Abstract

Detection and analysis of trace mineral elements in vegetables, and more generally in food by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) promises applications with expected outcomes in nutrition quality. LIBS ensures contactless, real-time measurements of multielemental samples without any preparation of the samples surface. However, its application to analyses of aliments such as vegetables has one main drawback. Organic materials are strongly inhomogeneous and the physical properties that govern the processes of laser energy absorption, material ablation and plasma formation depend on a large number of parameters making calibration with standard samples impossible. This technique requires therefore a calibration-free approach that allows one to deduce the relative elemental concentrations from the intensities of spectral lines emitted from the laser-produced plasma. The main difficulty of such an approach is related to the temporal and spatial variation of the plasma properties. Therefore we have performed spectroscopic analysis of the plasma produced by Nd:Yag laser ablation of potato flesh and skin. The emission spectra recorded with an Echelle spectrometer with ICCD detector were compared to the spectral radiance computed for a plasma in local thermal equilibrium to deduce the mass fractions of the mineral elements.