Application of laser plasma confinement and bending effect for direct analysis of powder sample

A new technique involving laser plasma confinement and bending effects has been developed for direct powder spectrochemical analysis by means of a laser ablation method. In this technique, a special powder sample holder has been designed to overcome the blown-off problem suffered by the powder sample and allow the detection of plasma emission to be conducted on the bended shock wave plasma outside the holder, which is practically free from the continuous emission background. The spectra of various powder samples such as CuCl2, NaCl and ZnS were measured in this experiment. The result shows that this technique offers a promising practical alternative for direct spectrochemical analysis of powder sample of small quantity with extremely low background at reduced surrounding air pressure.