Nanoparticle-enhanced laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy of metallic samples.

In this article, an increase of 1-2 orders of magnitude in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) signals was obtained by depositing silver nanoparticles on metal samples. Nanoparticle-enhanced LIBS (NELIBS) was found to be a robust and flexible tool for the chemical analysis of metals because the sample emission signal did not appear to be affected much by the size and concentration of deposited nanoparticles (NPs) within the ranges of 10 nm for diameter and 1 order of magnitude for concentration. On the other hand, preliminary NELIBS tests on insulators and semiconductors did not show any significant enhancement with respect to conventional LIBS. In this article, we present a detailed investigation of the fundamental features of NELIBS spectra, in addition to some examples of analytical applications to the quantitative analysis of metal alloys.