Calibration-free approaches for quantitative analysis of a brass sample

Abstract

Abstract Calibration-free laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (CF-LIBS) is successfully employed to determine the chemical composition of brass samples using the LIBS technique. The sample is irradiated with a Q-switched Nd: YAG laser with a pulse width of 5 ns to generate laser-induced plasma (LIP) on the sample surface. The time evolution spectra were recorded from the surface of the brass sample only with an accumulation of five laser shots to get one LIP spectrum. Time-resolved LIP spectra have been utilized to identify the most appropriate time window (where the plasma is optically thin and in local thermal equilibrium) suitable for CF-LIBS implementation. Stoichiometric ablation is also demonstrated for metallic brass samples with the aforementioned laser in the present study. To obtain definitive quantitative information from LIP, the characterization of the plasma, i.e., spectral line intensity, spectral line broadening, electron number density, and plasma temperature, has been analyzed in this paper. Based on two different CF-LIBS algorithms, the brass sample composition was determined and found to be in good agreement with the certified results. This paper also compares and contrasts both strategies, as well as discusses their place and importance. The results of the present manuscript illustrate the potential applicability of CF-LIBS for yielding precise and accurate compositions of brass.