The use of laser-induced shock wave plasma spectroscopy (LISPS) for examining physical characteristics of pharmaceutical products

An experimental study has been performed to examine the physical characteristics of pharmaceutical products, such as tablet, by employing an emission plasma induced by Nd-YAG laser at a low pressure of Helium gas. The hardness of tablet is one of the parameters that examined during the production process for standard quality of pharmaceutical products. In the Laser-Induced Shock Wave Plasma Spectroscopy (LISPS), the shock wave has a significant role in inducing atomic excitation. It was known that, the speed of the shock wavefront depends on the hardness of the sample, and it correlates with the ionization rate of the ablated atoms. The hardness of the tablet is examined using the intensity ratio between the ion of Mg (II) 275.2 nm and the neutral of Mg (I) 285.2 nm emission lines detected from the laser-induced plasma. It was observed that the ratio changes with respect to the change in the tablet hardness, namely the ratio is higher for the hard tablet. Besides the ratio measurements, we also measured the depth profile of a tablet by focusing 60 shots of irradiation of laser light at a fixed position on the surface of the tablet. It was found that the depth profile varies differently with the hardness of the tablet. These experiment results show that the technique of LISPS can be applied to examine the quality of pharmaceutical products.