Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy and Chlorophyll a Flourescence Transients: In-situ Analytical Methods of the Future

Abstract

While laboratories performing elemental analyses around the world are continuously, and with great success, pushing for higher and higher accuracy and precision and lower levels of detection; the fact that these methods are confined to a laboratory is limiting their applicability for a large number of applications. This is most obviously the case if it is impossible to transport samples to the laboratory, but also if the time it takes to sample, ship and analyse samples are simply too long for the analyses to be useful when they get back. In such cases, In-situ analytical methods are needed, and even though the analyses achieved using these methods often have far inferior accuracy and precision compared to laboratory methods, they can generate results that are superior to what can be achieved using in even the best elemental analysis laboratories in the world. This is because they can be taken to the otherwise unreachable samples, can provide instantaneous results and because they hereby allow for the total number of analyses to be drastically increased. One thing is the potential of in-situ analytical methods however; no matter how mobile it is, it must first show that it can produce trustworthy results of a sufficient quality; something that remains a problem for many in-situ methods. In my PhD, I present my work with two such in-situ methods, Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) and OJIP transients, the rising part of chlorophyll a fluorescence transients from dark-adapted leaves.

Citationsformater