Quantification of rare earth elements with low pressure laser induced breakdown spectroscopy employing subtarget supported micro mesh sample holder

Abstract

Presented in this paper are the results of practical application of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy to sensitive detection of rare earth elements (REEs) in trace amounts using a Cu subtarget supported stainless steel micro mesh (SSMM) powder sample holder. Powder samples containing separately a number of REEs (Yb, Y, Eu, and La) are measured using the SSMM sample holder and a 68 mJ ns Nd:YAG laser with −5 mm defocused irradiation in 1.3 kPa ambient air. All the resulted emission spectra are shown to exhibit excellent spectral quality featuring well resolved sharp spectral lines with low background and without spectral interference from the sample holder. Further measurements of additional powder samples with varied content of REEs are performed to reveal the existence of linear calibration lines with extrapolated zero intercept and well below 100 ppm detection limits promising for practical quantitative REEs analysis, particularly for sensitive field exploration of REEs.