Lens-to-sample distance effect on the quantitative analysis of steel by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

The focusing position of the laser affects the characteristics of the laser-induced plasma, which in turn influences the signal stability and the quantitative analysis of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. In this study, six standard alloy steels are used as the samples, and the trace elements including Si, Mn, Cr are quantitatively analyzed by internal standard method. The variations of line intensity, background noise intensity, signal-to-background ratio (SBR), detecting sensitivity and detection of limit (LOD) of the element with lens-to-sample distance (LTSD) were investigated. The results show that both the intensities of the analytical line and the background noise reached a maximum when the LTSD is 94 mm. While the corresponding SBR is relatively low. For quantitative analysis, it is observed that the change of the detection sensitivity with LTSD has the similar trend with that of SBR. That is, the detection sensitivity has a lower value when the LTSD is 94 mm. However, when the LTSD changes from 93 mm to 99 mm, LODs of the three elements are maintained at a small value. The present results indicate that for quantitative analysis of LIBS, the intensities of the analytical line and the background noise should be comprehensively considered when optimizing the laser focusing position. (paper)