Issue 10, 2022

Enabling orders of magnitude sensitivity improvement for quantification of Ga in a Ce matrix with a compact Echelle spectrometer

Abstract

Chemical analysis of lanthanide materials via laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is often hindered by the complex spectral response and self-absorption phenomena that occur in the LIBS plasma. Previous attempts to quantify the alloying metal gallium in cerium matrices with a handheld LIBS analyzer were plagued by the inability to resolve major Ga atomic emissions and self-absorption effects, diminishing the fidelity of calibration curves. However, implementing a compact, high resolution Echelle spectrometer coupled with a Stark-broadening based self-absorption correction can enable proper recording of the main Ga I emission at 417.2 nm and improve the sensitivity of calibration curves by two orders of magnitude compared to the handheld device. We demonstrate this by using the mathematical correction on recorded high-resolution spectra from Ce–Ga samples to achieve calibration curves with detection limits as low as 0.008 wt% Ga. This study indicates that using a compact spectrometer capable of higher resolution measurements can yield higher fidelity solutions for Pu chemical analysis via LIBS in constrained environments, e.g., in a glovebox – enabling higher sensitivity in rapid detection of minor elements.

Graphical abstract: Enabling orders of magnitude sensitivity improvement for quantification of Ga in a Ce matrix with a compact Echelle spectrometer

Article information

Article type
Technical Note
Submitted
23 May 2022
Accepted
12 Sep 2022
First published
14 Sep 2022

J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2022,37, 1975-1980

Author version available

Enabling orders of magnitude sensitivity improvement for quantification of Ga in a Ce matrix with a compact Echelle spectrometer

A. P. Rao, P. R. Jenkins, J. D. Auxier, M. B. Shattan and A. K. Patnaik, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2022, 37, 1975 DOI: 10.1039/D2JA00179A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements