Trace elemental analysis by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy—Biological applications

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) is a sensitive optical technique capable of fast multi-elemental analysis of solid, gaseous and liquid samples. Since the late 1980s LIBS became visible in the analytical atomic spectroscopy scene; its applications having been developed continuously since then. In this paper, the use of LIBS for trace element determination in different matrices is reviewed. The main emphasis is on spatially resolved analysis of microbiological, plant and animal samples.     

Size Evolution of Photoabsorption Spectra of Small Clusters: A Computational Study

Photoabsorption spectra of clusters, N=5–9, have been calculated using a diatomics-in-molecules like electronic structure model and a path-integral Monte Carlo sampling method. A qualitative change in the calculated spectra has been observed at N=9, which has been interpreted in terms of a structural transformation in the clusters consisting in a transition from trimer-like ionic cores observed for N≤7 to dimer-like ionic cores prevailing in through an intermediate state (comparable abundances of both types of ionic cores) observed in . The calculated spectra have been thoroughly compared with an earlier calculation on , , and reported from our group and data available for the same cluster sizes from an experiment.