Analysis of Pulse-to-Pulse Signal Uncertainty in LIBS Spectral Intensity on the Basis of Error Propagation

Abstract

Atomic spectral lines obtained by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) often suffer from serious pulse-to-pulse fluctuation, which limits the accuracy of the quantitative analysis. Solving this problem is an important issue for improving the analytical performance of LIBS. In the present review the model to simulate the emission spectral intensity of LIBS measurements is introduced, and the method to evaluate the propagation of the pulse-to-pulse variation of plasma parameters to the variation of emission spectral intensity by the error propagation analysis is explained. The recent three studies found in the literature that investigated the pulse-to-pulse fluctuation of the spectral line intensities on the basis of error propagation analysis are reviewed.