LIBS leavs the lab for field work in industry and defense

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has experienced a surge of growth in recent years, particularly for field-based applications. The development of new laser sources and portable instrumentation is helping LIBS find a niche in everything from environmental monitoring and materials analysis to homeland security, medical diagnostics, and even space-based research. In addition, the emergence of the echelle spectrometer and low-cost broadband spectrometers-both of which afford higher spectral coverage and resolution-has opened up new applications in molecular- and biological-matter detection and sorting of metals and plastics. "If you can do it in the lab using conventional techniques, that works really well. But if you need to go out into the field and do it rapidly, that is where LIBS really shines," said David Cremers, technical staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM), whose group is developing a LIBS-based instrument for terrestrial carbon sequestering and remote elemental analysis of Martian soils. "It is not going to replace the majority of lab-based instruments, but LIBS works well in industrial environments and unique situations such as forensics." Much of the technology that goes into a typical LIBS system-laser, optical light-collection system, spectrometer, detector, and computer-has been around for years, and the technique itself has been known since the early 1960s. Even so, LIBS has had a tough time gaining a following in many of the industries for which it is best suited. But as the components mature and improve, and research continues to validate LIBS as an effective and even superior analytical instrument for field-based measurements of materials rarigixig from steel to soil to ambient air and even coffee beans, LIBS has begun to attract more funding from commercial and military investors.