Investigation of elemental composition change by laser ablation of a rare-earth containing material

Rare earth doped materials, in the form of nanoparticles, have attracted extensive attention in photonic and biomedical applications. Separation of rare earth elements in a clean way has been also topic of great interest. Laser ablation has been actively examined to convert the rare earth containing bulk materials into functional nanoparticles as a potentially clean, efficient production method. However, elemental composition change during laser ablation based rare earth containing nanoparticle conversion process has not been studied extensively despite its significance. In this study, an ultraviolet nanosecond pulsed laser is used to ablate an erbium containing glass material with a major aim of tracking elemental composition in collected nanoparticles. The effect of laser fluence and laser beam spot is experimentally investigated by morphological, optical, spectroscopic, and elemental analyses. The results indicates the careful choice of laser parameters for the laser ablation can either preserve the elemental composition of bulk materials for applications dealing with rare earth containing materials or separate rare earth elements from bulk materials. (copyright 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim)