Effect of imperfect focusing in laser-induced plasma spectroscopy measurements

In Laser-Induced Plasma Spectroscopy (LIPS) measurements a plasma is produced by focusing of a laser pulse on a solid sample surface. In this paper the effect of imperfect focusing on the reproducibility of LIPS measurements is studied in detail, under typical working conditions. Using fast optical and spectroscopic diagnostics, it is shown that plasma and shock wave dynamics play a fundamental role on the resulting LIPS signal when accurate quantitative results are needed.