Abstract
Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), known also as laser-induced plasma spectroscopy (LIPS), is a well-known spectrochemical elemental analysis technique. The field of LIBS has been rapidly matured as a consequence of growing interest in real-time analysis across a broad spectrum of applied sciences and recent development of commercial LIBS analytical systems. In this brief review, we introduce the contributions of the research groups in the African continent in the field of the fundamentals and applications of LIBS. As it will be shown, the fast development of LIBS in Africa during the last decade was mainly due to the broad environmental, industrial, archaeological, and biomedical applications of this technique.
Highlights
Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an analytical technique with a wide variety of applications for the qualitative and quantitative elemental studies
At the end of the laser pulse, we are left with the so-called plasma plume which consists of a collection of positive ions and swirling electrons at very high temperature in the range 6000–10,000 K that depends on the laser pulse energy and the physical properties of the target material
The reason was primarily attributable to the technical difficulties encountered in performing LIBS experiments in liquids and the short lifetime of in-bulk generated laser-induced plasma making the interpretation of the obtained spectra not significant and preventing the extraction of plasma parameters
Summary
Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an analytical technique with a wide variety of applications for the qualitative and quantitative elemental studies. Adopting laser pulses of few tens of millijoules and pulse duration of a few nanoseconds leads to an irradiance in the order of some megawatts. Focusing of such huge amount of laser power in a tiny volume results in the evaporation, dissociation, atomization, and ionization of some nanograms to micrograms of the sample surface material. At the end of the laser pulse, we are left with the so-called plasma plume which consists of a collection of positive ions and swirling electrons at very high temperature in the range 6000–10,000 K that depends on the laser pulse energy and the physical properties of the target material (melting point, heat of vaporization, thermal conductivity, surface reflectivity, etc.). There is a direct proportionality between the intensity of the spectral lines and the concentration of the relevant elements in the target material
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