Diagnostics of Scattering Atoms for High Sensitive Spectroscopy Using Low-Fluence Laser Ablation

Abstract

A low fluence UV laser ablation technique combined with Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy is developed for an extreme trace element analysis of solid surface with a nanometer-scale depth resolution. Since the behavior of scattering atoms by the laser ablation was significant for improving the sensitivity of the analysis, the spatial distributions of the scattering atoms were investigated by a two dimensional imaging LIF spectroscopy method. Influences of a buffer gas and an assist mask on the atomic distributions were also investigated for enhancing the sensitivity of the analysis.