Speaker
Prof.
Alessandro De Giacomo
(University of Bari)
Description
Laser-Induced Plasma (LIP) is produced by the interaction of high-energy laser pulses with matter in any state of aggregation. As a consequence of their high electron number density and excitation temperature, these systems are characterized by strong emission of radiation, whose study can allow determining the plasma parameters and composition. Therefore, a strong effort has been done by the scientific community to develop spectroscopic methodologies for the investigation of LIPS, mainly due to the wide range of applications in which they can be exploited. For instance, the optical emission spectrum, when the laser-produced plasma is in near-equilibrium conditions, enables the elemental analysis of the irradiated sample. This technique, which is usually referred to as Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), has been growing as an important tool in analytical chemistry thanks to its practical advantages in terms of speed of analysis and instrumental flexibility in real applications. Moreover this technique has been strongly improved by the use of NPs deposited on the sample allowing detection limit in the range of a few ppb. In the field of materials science different applications based on laser-matter interaction have been proposed in the last three decades, going from welding and cutting to the deposition of a large variety of thin films, with the Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique. Recently, the production of a wide range of nanomaterials has been accomplished by laser ablation of solid targets in liquid environment, including carbon nanotubes, graphene and metallic nanoparticles (NPs).
In this work starting from the fundamental mechanisms involved in laser induced plasma and breakdown generation we will discuss the potentiality of laser induced plasma in recent analytical applications and the production of NPs with laser induced plasma in liquid environment.
Primary author
Prof.
Alessandro De Giacomo
(University of Bari)
Co-author
Dr
Marcella Dell'Aglio
(University of Bari)
