High-speed digital photographic study of an inductively coupled plasma during laser ablation: comparison of dried solution aerosols from a microconcentric nebulizer and solid particles from laser ablation

Abstract

High-speed photographs and videos of an ICP are used to examine the fates of solid particles produced by laser ablation (LA) in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP). The trajectories, lifetimes, and emission behavior of particles traversing the plasma are studied under a variety of conditions. Desolvated particles from a nebulized yttrium solution and particles ablated from a Y₂O₃ pellet are mixed and introduced simultaneously into an ICP. High-resolution digital photographs and video sequences are captured using shutter speeds of approximately 65 µs. The plasma behavior of particles generated by a quadrupled Nd:YAG laser (266 nm) and an ArF excimer laser (193 nm) are compared, and either argon or helium is used as the transport gas through the ablation cell. No red emission clouds from YO are visible in the ICP when a 20 µL min⁻¹ nebulizer is used to spray a 2000 ppm aqueous Y solution, suggesting that the wet droplets from this nebulizer desolvate almost completely before entering the ICP. These desolvated particles from the nebulized solution atomize and ionize like the small dry particulates from laser ablation. However, many large ablated particulates are observed to fly through the plasma intact, possibly contributing to signal noise, deposition on the sampler and skimmer cones, and elemental fractionation.