title: High stability breakdown of noble gases with femtosecond laser pulses.
abstract: In the past, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) signals have been reported to have a stability independent of the pulse length in solids. In this Letter, we perform the first stability study of femtosecond LIBS in gases (to our best knowledge) and show a significant improvement in signal stability over those achieved with longer pulses. Our study shows that ultrashort-pulse LIBS has an intrinsically higher stability in gas compared to nanosecond-pulse LIBS because of a deterministic ionization process at work in the femtosecond pulse. Relative standard deviations below 1% are demonstrated and are likely only limited by our laser output fluctuations. This enhanced emission stability may open up possibilities for a range of applications, from monitoring rapid gas dynamics to high-quality broadband light sources.
authors.affiliation: The Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627, USA.
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Heins
authors.forename: Chunlei
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guo