DOUBLE-PULSE; QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS; INDUCED PLASMA; DEUTERIUM; ABLATION; CHAMBER; GAS

An experimental study is conducted in search of the much needed experimental method for practical and minimally destructive analysis of hydrogen (H) and deuterium (D) in a nuclear power plant. For this purpose, a picosecond (ps) Nd:YAG laser is employed and operated with 300-500 mu J output energies in a variety of ambient gases at various gas pressures. The sample chamber used is specially designed small quartz tube with an open end that can be tightly fitted to the sample surface. It is found that ambient Ar gas at reduced pressure of around 0.13 kPa gives the best spectral quality featuring fully resolved H and D emission lines with clearly detectable intensities and practically free from surface water interference. The D emission intensities measured from zircaloy plates containing various concentrations of D impurity are shown to yield a linear calibration line with extrapolated zero intercept, offering its potential application to quantitative analysis. The estimated detection limit of less than 10 ppm is well below the sensitivity limit of around 600 ppm required for the regular inspection of zircaloy tubes in a heavy water nuclear power plant. The use of the exceedingly low laser energy is shown to offer an additional advantage of minimum destructive effect marked by the resulted tiny craters of about 5 mu m diameter with 25 mu m depth. These results promise the potential development of the desired alternative analytical tool for regular in situ and real time inspection of the zircaloy tubes in a heavy water power plant.

DUAL-PULSE LIBS; INDUCED PLASMA; ABLATION EFFICIENCY; SENSITIVE ANALYSIS; HELIUM PLASMA; FEMTOSECOND; ENHANCEMENT; NANOSECOND; MICROANALYSIS; DEUTERIUM

A time-resolved spectroscopic study is performed by using 125-500 micro-Joule (mu J) ps laser focused directly without the aid of microscope on a Cu plate sample in a variety of low-pressure ambient gases including air, helium and argon. It is shown that the ultrashort mu J laser-induced low-pressure plasma in Ar ambient gas exhibits the typical characteristics of shock wave plasma responsible for the thermal excitation and sharp emission of the analyte atoms. It is found that the highest signal to background (S/B) ratio of about 100 is achieved in 1.3 kPa argon ambient gas and detected with optical multichannel analyzer (OMA) gate delay of 1 ns and gate width of 50 mu s. The emission spectra obtained from pure Zn sample show the effective suppression of the ionic emission with ablation energy around and below 500 mu J. The experimental setup is successfully applied to Cr analysis with low detection limit in steel. In particular, its application to C analysis in steel is demonstrated to resolve the long standing problem of overlapping contributions from the neutral and ionic Fe emission. It is further found that an element of high excitation energy such as fluorine (F) can be clearly detected from a non metal teflon sample. Further, its application to alluminum sample containing various concentrations of Mg, Ca, Fe, and Si impurity elements clearly displays the existence of linear calibration lines promising for quantitative analyses in certain dynamical ranges. Finally, in view of the tiny crater sizes of less than 10 mu m diameter created by the very low ps laserenergy, this technique is promising for micrometer resolution mapping of elemental distribution on the sample surface and its depth profiling. (C) 2017 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

INDUCED BREAKDOWN SPECTROSCOPY; QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS; PULSE; HELIUM; LIBS; CONFIGURATION; MICROANALYSIS; ENHANCEMENT; DEUTERIUM; NM

An experimental study is performed on the time-dependent intensity variations of Zn emission focusing on the triplet (Zn I 481.0 nm) and singlet (Zn I 636.2 nm) emission lines induced under three experimental conditions. A single nanosecond (ns) Nd:YAG laser in standard laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy(LIBS) setup is employed for the investigation of direct shock wave-induced emission characteristics with N-2 ambient gas at 0.4 kPa and the different effects of He ambient gas at 2 kPa. An additional two-laser system consisting of ns and picosecond (ps) lasers in an orthogonal setup is used to study the exclusive role of a He-assisted excitation (HAE) process for the generation of those two Zn emission lines. The results of this study consistently exhibit the dominant triplet emission over the singlet emission marked by initial maximum intensity ratios of 8 and 12 obtained from the experiments using a single-laser setup in N-2 and He ambient gases, respectively, indicating the significant contribution of the HAE mechanism to the enhanced and longer lasting Zn emission in He gas. The experiment using the special two-laser setup further demonstrates the exclusive role of the HAE process in the Zn emission featuring an even markedly higher triplet/singlet intensity ratio of 22. Thus, the results of this study suggest the possibly more general nature of dominant triplet emission phenomena previously found in laser-induced He and Ca emission spectra. (C) 2017 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy; TEA CO2 laser-induced gas plasma; transversely excited atmospheric CO2 laser; powder analysis;INDUCED BREAKDOWN SPECTROSCOPY; SAMPLES; IDENTIFICATION; ABLATION; SOILS

Analysis of powder samples available in small quantities has been carried out using metal-assisted gas plasma by utilizing a transversely excited atmospheric (TEA) CO2 laser. The powder was homogeneously mixed with Si grease, and the mixed powder was painted on a metal subtarget. When a TEA CO2 laserwas directly focused on the metal subtarget at atmospheric pressure of He gas, a high-temperature He gas plasma was induced. It is assumed that the powder particles were vaporized to be effectively atomized and excited in the gas plasma region. This method has been employed in the rapid analyses of elements in organic and inorganic powder samples present in small quantities. Detection of trace elements of Cr and Pb has been successfully made by using the supplement powder and loam soil, respectively. The detection limits of Pb in loam soil were approximately 20 mg/kg.