title: Plasma-particle interactions in a laser-induced plasma: implications for laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy.
abstract: The interaction between laser-induced plasmas and individual particles controls the rate of particle dissociation and subsequent atomic diffusion and emission processes, with implications for single-particle spectroscopy, as well as materials synthesis and other plasma sources. It is demonstrated through quantitative plasma imaging studies that discrete particles dissociate on a time scale of tens of microseconds within plasmas formed by 300-mJ Nd:YAG laser pulses. Significant spatial nonhomogeneity, as measured by localized atomic emission from particle-derived calcium atoms, persists on a comparable time scale, providing a measure of their average atomic diffusion rate of 0.04 m(2)/s. In addition, the resulting calcium atomic emission is explored using image analysis as well as traditional spectroscopic analysis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611-6300, USA.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Hohreiter
authors.forename: D W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Hahn