Influence of laser beam characteristics and focusing optics on optical laser-induced breakdown detection

Laser-induced breakdown detection (LIBD) is a well established technique for measuring size and concentration of inorganic colloids in liquids. However, most applications of LIBD are restricted to the measurement of mean sizes, which is problematic in cases of wide colloid size distributions (PSD) as typically is the case in natural systems. Evaluation of PSDs from LIBD is possible but requires detailed control of the power density within the laser focus. In the present work we describe the mathematical treatment how to calculate this power density from the beam characteristics of the light source and the optical properties of the focusing optics. The results are compared to measured spatial distributions of breakdown events of three LIBD setups.     

Cover Picture: Ann. Phys. 3'2013

Biological modulation using a femtosecond‐pulsed laser: When a femtosecond‐pulsed laser (yellow beam) is used to irradiate the cytosol of the cell (upper left), it generates free electrons (blue particles) in the focused area. Laser‐induced free electrons subsequently produce reactive oxygen species (ROS, red particles), which are amplified by inter‐mitochondrial networks. Amplified ROS signals can stimulate endoplasmic reticulum to release calcium ions (green particles). Femtosecond‐pulsed laser stimulation can modify blood vessel permeability (lower right). After short‐term laser irradiation, small chemicals (e.g., drugs) and proteins to which the intact blood vessel is impermeable can now flow out while red blood cells stay within the lumen. The cascade mechanism, which consists of low‐density plasma, ROS and calcium, is responsible for femtosecond‐pulsed laser‐induced biological modulation in both excitable and non‐excitable cells. J. Yoon et al., pp. 205‐214 in this issue     

Particle Systems Characterization Using a Flat Cell Static Light Scattering Apparatus

In this work a light scattering apparatus for the study of heterogeneous liquid systems of evolving morphology is presented. A Fraunhofer configuration consisting of a linear array of photodiodes is used to detect the light scattered by thin samples illuminated by a He‐Ne laser light. Temperature control is available. The instrument is tested with the polymerization induced phase separation of a thermosetting polymer formulated with a divinylester resin copolymerized with styrene and modified with poly(methylmethacrylate). The system is successfully modeled as an arrangement of particles growing in size and number, and varying in composition. The ability of the experimental setup to provide results that can be quantitatively analyzed is checked using microspherical polystyrene standards. Different samples with nominal sizes of 0.5, 1 and 2 μm are used in different combinations of sample thickness and concentration. The analysis of the light scattering spectra is performed using inverse techniques to estimate the particle size distribution of the microspheres. The results agree with previous knowledge of the parameters of the samples.     

Resolving Concentrated Particle Size Mixtures Using Dynamic Light Scattering

Dynamic light scattering (DLS) is a technique used for measuring the size of molecules and particles undergoing Brownian motion by observing time‐dependent fluctuations in the intensity of scattered light. The measurement of samples using conventional DLS instrumentation is limited to low concentrations due to the onset of a phenomenon called multiple scattering. The problems of multiple scattering have been addressed in a light scattering instrument incorporating non‐ invasive backscatter optics (NIBS). This novel optic arrangement maximizes the detection of scattered light while maintaining signal quality and allows for measurements of turbid samples. This paper discusses the ability of backscatter detection to accurately determine particle sizes at 1 %w/v sample concentrations and demonstrates the correct resolution of different size populations using a series of latex standard mixtures with known volume ratios. The concentration of 1 %w/v is much higher than can be measured on conventional dynamic light scattering instruments.     

Particle Size Distributions from Static Light Scattering with Regularized Non‐Negative Least Squares Constraints

Simulated data from static light scattering produced by several particle size distributions (PSD) of spherical particles in dilute solution is analyzed with a regularized non‐negative least squares method (r‐NNLS). Strong fluctuations in broad PSD's obtained from direct application of NNLS are supressed through an averaging procedure, as introduced long ago in the inversion problem in dynamic light scattering. A positive correlation between the best PSD obtained from several averaging schemes and the condition number of the respective data transfer matrices was obtained. The performance of the method is found to be similar to that of constrained regularization (CONTIN), which uses also NNLS as a starting solution, but incorporates another regularizing strategy.     

激光目标探测装置的回波特性及目标识别技术研究

提出了一种基于目标面元三维坐标和脉冲飞行时间的激光目标探测装置的回波脉冲功率描述方法,理论推导了激光目标探测装置的探测目标和气旋粒子的面元散射光功率和回波总功率的计算公式,并给出了回波信号的仿真计算脉冲波形.同时根据目标和气旋粒子回波脉冲的幅度 脉宽信息,提出了识别目标与干扰脉冲波形的新方法.     

基于激光布里渊散射的高速气流测试技术

激光布里渊散射是由介质密度涨落引起的一种非弹性散射现象,其散射谱特征参数（频移、线宽）取决于散射角和散射介质压强、温度等参数,通过探测高速气流激光布里渊散射谱,可反演获得高速气流压强、温度等参数。介绍了基于激光布里渊散射原理的高速气流参数测试原理,设计了一种基于法布里 珀罗干涉仪的高速气流参数测试装置,搭建实验平台获取了高速氮气气流的激光布里渊散射谱。实验结果表明,通过激光布里渊散射谱获得的高速气流压强、温度值与理论值相对误差在15%以内。     

Fractal Character of Dynamic Light Scattering of Particles

Dynamic light scattering signals from particles, exhibit fractal characteristics. This feature can be used to determine the particle size. The use of the fractal dimension, as a quantitative method to analyze the properties of dynamic light scattering signals from submicron particles, is presented. The analysis is performed directly on the time‐resolved scattered intensity, and the Box Dimensions of light scattering signals of particles with diameters 100, 200, 500 and 1000 nm. The experimental results show that the fractal dimensions of light scattering signals correlate well with particle size. In the submicron size range, the smaller the particles, the larger their fractal dimensions. Compared with the PCS technique, only several hundreds of samples are required in the fractal method. Therefore, the data processing is easily accomplished. However, this method only provides the mean particle size, but not the particle size distribution.     

炸药爆炸作用下液体破碎后颗粒尺寸分布的研究

 对液体抛撒的液滴尺寸进行研究在军事和民用上是很重要的,国内刚开始使用激光散射仪开展此项研究工作。利用R. A. Dobbins等人的液体颗粒测量技术,研制了一套既简单又实用的测量液体抛撒过程中液滴尺寸的实验装置——激光散射仪。对于激光与液体微粒的相互作用,当微粒的反射与折射和吸收效应可被忽略时,可导出液体微粒对激光散射的光强公式。只要测量激光被微粒散射的光强,就可推算出微粒的Sauter平均直径。在使用激光散射仪测量液体抛撒液滴尺寸的实验中,用水代替爆炸抛撒液体,测量结果表明：液体抛撒二次破碎中,在固定位置测量到的云雾区液滴Sauter平均直径随测量时间的增加呈现出减小的趋势;而云雾区的宽度则随着与抛撒中心距离的增大而呈现出增加的趋势;云雾区前沿的液滴Sauter平均直径随着与抛撒中心距离的增加而呈现出先逐渐增大然后迅速减小的趋势。为便于比较,对燃料抛撒二次破碎进行了回收法测量和数值模拟计算,其测量与计算结果与用激光散射仪测量的结果有较好的一致性。     

室内空气中颗粒状污染物的计数技术

室内环境空气污染对人体健康影响很大。文中指出影响人体健康的致病因子,并详细分析先进的光散射理论,在此基础上建立异轴采光数学模型,分析单个微粒的光通量和粒径之间的关系。鉴于单个颗粒的散射光信号很弱,本文提出一种方法,把光辉器的内腔（开放腔）作为颗粒注入区,利用激光器的内腔功率谱密度远大于腔外功率密度的特点,结合先进的激光散射理论,对空气中的颗粒进行计数的粒径分档。实践证明,该方法对较小粒径的颗粒检测     

Size dependent optical characterization of semiconductor particle: CdS embedded in polymer matrix

We report the optical investigation and analysis of both nano-sized and micrometer size Cadmium Sulphide particles which is embedded in a transparent polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) dielectric host material. A designed and fabricated laser based light scattering system using a He-Ne laser of wavelength 632.8nm was used for the measurement and study of the scattering properties of the particles as a function of the scattering angle at this wavelength. An attempt was made to experimentally determine the most significant elements of the Mueller scattering matrix using combinations of randomly and linearly polarized incident laser beam and subsequent analyzers in corresponding orientations. The analysis of the experimental data was done by the method of comparison with theoretically generated data. Novel computational technique, involving single scattering for spherical particles using Mie-theory, was developed and applied. The theoretical data was found to be in good agreement with the experimental data within an acceptable margin of error. The results have proved that the combination of the experimental setup and associated computational method is a highly efficient and reliable in-situ system for monitoring size growth of semiconductor particles in the laboratory.     

Cassegrain激光发射系统的光路设计

为了提高激光探测系统激光的发射功率,在出射激光为基模的高斯光束的光路设计中,根据高斯光束经过光学系统的变换与传输特性,分析了系统采用Cassegrain望远镜时,其遮拦比以及入射光束束腰半径对光功率透过率的影响。通过具体的数值计算得出,随着遮拦比及入射光束束腰半径的增大,系统光功率透过率将减小,给出了望远镜遮拦比与发射孔径处光斑尺寸之间的最佳匹配关系,最后讨论了离焦误差（安装误差）为0.2mm时对出射光斑尺寸的影响。     

Measurement of Plasma Parameters of Calcium and Silicon in a Rock Sample Using Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy

Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopic (LIBS) technique was used to detect calcium and silicon in an unknown sample. In this method plasma was generated by Nd∶YAG laser of wavelength 1 064 nm with energy 400 mJ and pulse duration between 5~10 ns. The method was applied for the qualitative as well as quantitative analysis. In the qualitative analysis, the electron number density (N_e) of plasma containing calcium and silicon is determined showing that N_e of neutral particles is equivalent to 1016 (cm-3) whereas for ionized particles it is 1017 (cm-3). Plasma temperature is measured using Boltzmann plot method which must be greater than 10 000 k. Intensity ratio method is used for the quantitative analysis shows various elements in abundance with calcium and silicon in majority.     

以新型银胶为衬底的超低浓度R6G的拉曼光谱检测

利用柠檬酸钠还原硝酸银的原理,提出了一种微波加热制备银胶体粒子的新方法,得到了颗粒大小较均匀的灰色银胶体。以提纯后的银胶为表面增强拉曼散射衬底,研究了超低浓度染料大分子罗丹明6G分子的表面增强拉曼散射,得到浓度分别为10-12mol/L、10-13mol/L和10-14mol/L的罗丹明6G的表面增强拉曼散射光谱,初步实现了罗丹明6G的单分子检测,证明该新型银胶衬底有非常强的表面增强拉曼活性。同时根据表面增强拉曼散射“热点”的增强机理,分析了获得超低浓度R6G的表面增强拉曼光谱的原因。     

Determination of wood grain direction from laser light scattering pattern

Laser light scattering patterns from the grains of wood are investigated in detail to gain information about the characteristics of scattering patterns related to the direction of the grains. For this purpose, wood samples of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and silver birch (Betula pubescens) were investigated. The orientation and shape of the scattering pattern of laser light in wood was found to correlate well with the direction of grain angles in a three-dimensional domain. The proposed method was also experimentally verified.     

Raman scattering study of glass crystallization kinetics

Laser induced glass-crystalline transition is studied by light scattering. Three significant effects are observed depending on the incident laser energy density: (i) Spectral band narrowing indicating cluster enlargement constitutes a precursor effect, (ii) an intensity increase effect indicates a rapid rise of the density of clusters attaining microcrystalline size and (iii) a dynamical reversal effect indicative of glass-crystalline instability. Cluster volume and crystallization appear as separate but related threshold phenomena.     

Experimental and Monte Carlo investigation of visible diffuse-reflectance imaging sensitivity to diffusing particle size changes in an optical model of a bladder wall

We have investigated the influence of scatterer size changes on the laser light diffusion, induced by collimated monochromatic laser irradiation, in tissue-like optical phantoms using diffuse-reflectance imaging. For that purpose, three-layer optical phantoms were prepared, in which nano- and microsphere size varied in order to simulate the scattering properties of healthy and cancerous urinary bladder walls. The informative areas of the surface diffuse-reflected light distributions were about 15×18 pixels for the smallest scattering particles of 0.05 μm, about 21×25 pixels for the medium-size particles of 0.53 μm, and about 25×30 pixels for the largest particles of 5.09 μm. The computation of the laser spot areas provided useful information for the analysis of the light distribution with high measurement accuracy of up to 92%. The minimal stability of 78% accuracy was observed for superficial scattering signals on the phantoms with the largest particles. The experimental results showed a good agreement with the results obtained by the Monte Carlo simulations. The presented method shows a good potential to be useful for a tissue-state diagnosis of the urinary bladder.     

Particle Size Distribution of Nanospheres by Monte Carlo Fitting of Small Angle X‐Ray Scattering Curves

A method for recovering the size distribution of spherical particles from small angle scattering data by using a Monte Carlo interference function fitting algorithm is presented. The method is based on the direct simulation of the small angle scattering data upon the assumption of non‐interacting hard sphere ensembles (“dilute” solution approximation). The algorithm for retrieving the particle size distribution does not require any additional parameters apart from the input of the scattering data. The fitting strategy necessarily implies positive particle size distributions, while preserving the advantage of the indirect transformation method for data desmearing. Furthermore, the present approach does not use any regularisation procedures of the best fit solution and favours smooth particle size distributions. The Monte Carlo procedure has been tested against several simulated cases with various types of mono‐ and bi‐modal size distributions and different noise levels. In the special case of non‐interacting spheres, the Monte Carlo fitting algorithm had the same retrieving ability as the well assessed indirect transformation, structure interference and maximum entropy methods. Finally, the algorithm was applied to retrieve the distribution of spherical nanopowders produced by gas‐to‐particle conversion both as free powder and as reinforcing second‐phase agent in polymer nanocomposites.     

Scattering and Transmission by a Monolayer of Spheres: A Study on the Monolayer Structure

The angular distribution of scattered light and the transmission of radiation through a monolayer of monodisperse spherical particles at variable particle concentration are studied. The scattering of light by a single particle is calculated with the classical Lorentz‐Mie theory. For a monolayer of mono‐dispersed spherical particles, if the monolayer density is less than 0.5 and the particle size parameter is larger than 5, effects from multiple scattering and dependent scattering can be excluded so that only steric interactions are considered. It is found that the scattering pattern, especially in the forward and backward directions, and the transmission are strongly dependent on the monolayer density.