Abstract
A fundamental study has been made of the erosion of samples that results when a normal laser beam is focussed onto the surface of various metals in order to establish acceptable analytical method using a laser microprobe.
The JEOL laser microprobe model JLM-200 was employed for the experiment.
Observations of the craters and the eroded materials show that the erosion phenomena of metals are classified into four types of tin, iron, aluminum and copper.Remarkable differences of crater sizes are observed among various kinds of metals.Volume of the crater is relative to the energy required to melt the sample except a few metals.Comparisons of the energies required to vaporize metals and the erosion amounts measured also suggest that the fraction of energy which is transferred from the laser beam to the sample and the resulting plume is dependent on the thermal property of the metal.
Consequently, a possibility that the matrix effect will take place in the analytical procedure of alloy samples is discussed.
