Basic research on an environmental monitoring system for assaying cesium and barium using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

This paper reports a new method for real-time in-situ elemental analysis of measured radioactive elements that are strictly legally constrained to move the measuring samples for safety reasons. In this method, the applicable range of conventional laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), which has been used only to determine the elemental composition, is expanded in order to obtain an estimate of the isotope ratio by measuring the variation due to temporal change in the atomic disintegration products in small enclosed spaces. It is noted that this method takes full advantage of LIBS such that any pretreatment of the measured sample is not required. In this study, a confirmatory test for the LIBS measurement of cesium and barium based on the results for the disintegration of cesium is demonstrated as part of a preliminary survey for developing a monitoring system for actual radioactive materials.